"A Close Look Into Social Bookmarking"
The internet has offered us so many options from shopping, games and emails to simple browsing the World Wide Web. It's been a great place to meet people and promote businesses. Some services make these fun tasks easier than others. One of the newer services offered on the web is social bookmarking.
"What is Social Bookmarking?"
You may think the phrase social bookmarking is completely new to you; however, there's a change you've already used social bookmarking and just didn’t realize that's what you were doing. Have you ever been on a website that was so interesting, you just had to send the link to it to a friend or family member? If so, you were doing social bookmarking.
Any time you "tag" a website and save it for later, you're participating in social bookmarking. A tag is a keyword used to describe a website or specific article. Rather than saving the link in your browser (like with internet history), you're saving it on the web where it can be shared with others.
"How Social Bookmarking Will Help You"
Social bookmarking sites offer you so many possibilities on the web and are described in so many ways, but the way I most like to refer to them is intelligent search engines. If you're looking for something on a social bookmarking site, all you have to do is type what you're looking for in the searching tool and tags or links will pop up for you.
Whether you're on the internet for work or just browsing for fun, you're going to find a lot of websites that are interesting and worth sharing with friends and family members. You could always call them up and very slowly read the entire web address to them (and hope they get each letter correctly), but that would take forever.
You could always send the link to their email address. However, if your friend is not someone that checks their email regularly, they're not going to get your link as soon as you'd like. However, many people use social bookmarking sites. By posting your link on any one of many social bookmarking sites, it can be easily shared by your friends, family members or anyone on the web.
Social bookmarking is a great way to get in some real advertising as well. Few things are more difficult than getting traffic to a new website. However, with the right tags, millions of people can see your link, whether it's for pleasure or business.
"Why Social Bookmarking is a True Success Story"
Social bookmarking has become a true success story that combines the ability to collaborate online with the knowledge of millions and the social dimension of the ever changing Internet. The World Wide Web is far too large and vast to ever allow individuals to find everything they're looking for on their own. Along comes the search engine to help them.
However, as efficient as the search engines may be for finding something, they can often add hours on to the search process, especially if the correct keywords are not used in the search. Social bookmarking is so unique because it brings the human touch into the equation.
They say the Internet has billions of websites. It also has billions of users and many of these users are sharing the sites they view with others. This is what social bookmarking is all about.
Have you ever found a joke or funny story online that you wanted to share with others but didn't feel like emailing it? Social bookmarking makes this possible. Say you read an interesting story about Brett Favre and you want to share it with your friends at work. If you're not a member of a social bookmarking site, the first thing you'll want to do is join one of the many available.
Once you've joined, you'll have a couple of buttons on your web browser. Go to your Brett Favre story and click on the designated button to share the link on the social bookmarking site.
A tagging window will pop up with your link in it and space for you to put in some tags or keywords. Here's where the tricky and important part comes in. The tags are what are going to help your friends and others find your website quickly and easily.
You can put in one or several tags but make them consistent with and related to your story. If you used football as a tag for your Brett Favre story, it would be far too vast to get good results. By using words like Favre, Bret Favre or Favre and a significant word from the article, others wishing to read your story will be able to find it easily.
You may also add significant notes or annotations with your tags to make it even easier for your website to be found. Because articles are tagged or voted on at social bookmarking sites, viewers can easily see which articles are the most recent or most popular.
By tagging your bookmarks as you would for yourself, others will find it easy to find what they're looking for and in much less time than it would take with conventional search engines.
As more sites are tagged, these generated tags are grouped together, making it easy for anyone on the web to find the websites. This is the beauty of social bookmarking, and what's made it such a success story for Internet users.
"What's so Special About Social Bookmarking?"
Social bookmarking is probably one of the most convenient and popular aspects of the Internet. While some people spend their time online for work or business purposes, many others spend their time browsing for popular games, shopping sites or even the most current news events. Social bookmarking makes each of these things easy and fun.
Have you ever found a site that was so interesting you wanted to share it with others? If so, you'll definitely benefit from social bookmarking. Social bookmarking allows you to tag a website and save it for a later time.
Unlike bookmarking of the past where you saved it to your web browser, with social bookmarking you're saving it to a website. There are many social bookmarking sites online. It's all a matter of finding the one that best meets your needs.
Social bookmarking not only lets you save and send your favorite websites to your friends and family members but it also gives you the opportunity to see what others have saved to the site or what they have to say about a particular website. You'll be amazed at the fun you'll have with
social bookmarking. However, that's not all. You'll also find them extremely educational and informative. The great news about social bookmarking is that most of these sites are free.
Sometimes you know what you're looking for but aren't sure what website is the best or will provide you with the most information or is the most current information.
You'll never have to worry about this with social bookmarking.
Most social bookmarking sites allow you to browse through all the sites that interest you based on most recently added or most popular.
They're also broken down into individual categories such as politics, sports, news, technology, blogging, entertainment and more.
Checking out as many social bookmarking sites as possible will help you choose the one that you like the best and fit the best into your lifestyle.
While some of the social bookmarking sites are more generic and accommodate everyone, others target certain groups. For instance, social news sites focus more on new-related items such as breaking headlines, politics, news in sports, etc.
Social news sites also allow you to participate in group discussions. Digg, Propeller and Reddit are examples of social bookmarking sites that cater to social news groups.
The voting system that's used in many social bookmarking sites allows you to stay current with not only the most recently added websites but also with the ones that are the most popular.
Social bookmarking sites are such a great way to find your favorite websites; it's no wonder why they're often called social search engines.
"Advantages of Social Bookmarking"
Any time we find some new method or technology that makes our lives a little more convenient and easy, many people try to find disadvantages, often forgetting its many advantages. Social bookmarking is something that, although not new, is getting a lot of publicity because of its many features.
People familiar with social bookmarking will be the first to admit you'd be hard pressed to find too many disadvantages of social bookmarking. Anything that's as easy, fun and convenient as social bookmarking has to be good. Here are some of the many advantages of using social bookmarking.
Social bookmarking gives you free exposure if you're a business owner trying to publicize your website. It allows you to share your website with millions of others as well as sharing business strategies with other business owners sharing your interest. It also can help make new friends, particularly those that are trying to generate traffic to their website as well.
Social bookmarking can work to help both of you as you offer each other support in sharing information and helpful links. Because there are so many excellent social bookmarking sites, you can get a lot of good exposure by using these sites to promote your business.
Social bookmarking is a great way to get a point across to an individual, a group of your peers or the world in general. Social bookmarking is huge today and extremely popular with more people using it every day.
Whether you're trying to notify the public of something or share something special with friends and family, social bookmarking will get it done quickly and easily. This is one of the main reasons why social bookmarking is so widely used in internet marketing.
Social bookmarking is extremely useful in educational purposes. Instructors and professors are able to save and share research links and study guides with their colleagues as well as with the students.
If a teacher finds some research material that they find extremely helpful and informative, they can share it with other teachers by adding it on the social bookmarking site with appropriate tag or keywords.
Social bookmarking offers many opportunities to make new friends. Most of us have specific interests in life and social bookmarking sites are a good place to find others that share your interests.
If you find articles or websites that interest you and the same user repeatedly submits them, you can check out the user's profile and add them as a friend. Many new relationships, personal and business, have started through social bookmarking.
We've talked about the many professional and education ways we can benefit from social bookmarking but it also provides us with fun ways to share things with our family and friends, regardless of what computer we're using. No longer do you have to email that favorite joke to your family living across the country. Save it to the social bookmarking and it can be viewed and enjoyed by them and thousands of others!
"Getting Started with Social Bookmarking"
You've heard so many good things about social bookmarking, you can probably hardly wait to get started with this great service. It's very easy to get into social bookmarking and will only take up a little bit of your time to set it up.
"Signing Up For Your Account"
The first thing you do is set up your account and install the button on your toolbar.
You have a choice of different bookmarking sites to choose from. Some people start off with just one while others sign up for several different sites to see which one they like best. Now that your account is all set up, you can begin searching the internet for all your favorite websites you've wanted to save and share. Once you get to the website you want to save all you do is click the button.
When you click the button, you either'll get a small popup window or be taken to their site where they'll ask a question or two regarding the website you're trying to save. The information may already be filled out for you depending on the site. You'll be asked to provide a tag, which is similar to a keyword.
Tags
The tag is how your friends will find your link. You have your choice of using one tag or several tags, which will make finding your links even easier. For instance, if you're on a website about the Minnesota Vikings, you tag may be "football" and "vikings". By using more than one tag, your site can be found in more than one way.
Some social bookmarking sites use a "tag cloud", which is a list of different tags and the most popular ones are in bolder and larger fonts than the not so popular ones. Tag clouds make it easy for you and others to quickly find the most popular bookmarks.
"Finding Websites Left by Others"
You've just learned how easy it is to set up a social bookmarking account and share your websites with others by using tags. What many don't realize is that social bookmarking is also great for helping you to see what others have that might interest you.
The internet is a huge place with well over 30 billion different web pages. If you had to go through all of them to find what you want, this would probably take much more time than you have! Social bookmarking makes it easy.
Suppose you were interested in reading a good book. You'd ask other people their opinion and rely on their recommendations. This is also what you do with social bookmarking sites.
All you have to do is type in what you're looking for and the most current and popular articles and websites will pop up for you.
You searching has been drastically reduced. If you find that a particular user has repeatedly submitted stuff that interests you, you may want to add them as a friend. Making friends is a popular part of social bookmarking sites and is a great way to share your interests with others.
"The Concept behind Social Bookmarking"
Social Bookmarking is a concept that has literally taken the internet by storm, especially for the individuals that spend a lot of time browsing or researching the same pages. Once you learn a little more about social bookmarking, you'll wish you had heard about it much sooner!
The internet is filled with people all searching, browsing or doing research for something different. There are over 15 billion web pages so if we were trying to look for something in particular, we'd have many pages to browse through and it would take a long time. We'd find a few that we like and save them to our browser for later use. We can choose to bookmark these pages or add them to our list of favorites.
This is one way of having them available for when we have the time or need to really look at them. This sounds like it would definitely keep things organized. This organization will only last; however, if you only have a few websites bookmarked. Once you start adding several, it becomes cluttered very fast.
In addition to the clutter is the fact that all your information is stored on only one computer, which means you can only view and access it from the computer where the pages were saved. Here is where social bookmarking is so handy and convenient.
You'll be able to view your bookmarks from any computer as long as you're on the social bookmarking site where they've been saved.
Social bookmarking uses a webpage to store all your favorite pages rather than a web browser and makes bookmarking easier and more fun. Bookmarking is usually saved by tags, which are like keywords. On social bookmarking sites like Delicious, bookmarking a site is as easy as clicking a button. You find a site that you like and click on the tag button. Tags are also used to describe the site so it's easier for you and others to easily find the site.
You find a site you want and tag it for later. When you tag the site, a window will open up for you so you can put in a description. The description is what you and others will use later to find the
webpage on the social bookmarking site. For instance, if you're saving a webpage about training German shepherd dogs, your tags might be German shepherd, training or dog training. You can use one tag or many. Obviously, the more you use, the easier it will be to find the site later.
The importance of tags is that they make it easier to sort through your many bookmarks, especially if you have many bookmarks. Thanks to the ease and convenience of social bookmarking, saving and bookmarking web pages has never been easier and more fun.
"Learning about Social Bookmarking"
Social bookmarking is the process of saving bookmarks to Internet websites and tagging them so they can be found later. Tagging your bookmarks is associating different keywords so you and others can easily access and view them later. In the past when we found a website we liked we would either bookmark it on our web browser or add it to our Favorites list.
While this may served its purpose, the bookmarks could only be found if you were on your computer. Social bookmarking allows you to save these bookmarks on a website where they can be viewed from any computer.
An advantage of social bookmarking is that it allows you to share these web pages with friends, family members and even strangers. Social bookmarking sites give you the option of setting your bookmarks as private or public.
Who uses Social Bookmarking?
When social bookmarking sites like Simpy, Furl and del.icio.us first came into use, social bookmarking was used a lot for academic purposes. Teachers and professors were able to bookmark valuable teaching resources and study notes so they were able to share them with other instructors and students.
The usefulness and convenience of social bookmarking soon made it something that was done by anyone wishing to share websites and articles. Today even amateurs are able to open social bookmarking accounts and join in on the fun.
"Advantages of Social Bookmarking"
There are so many advantages to using social bookmarking. At the very least, it offers many opportunities of organizing information, storing it and sharing it with others. With the proper use of tagging, viewers can easily find information on almost any topic. All they have to do is type in the tag or keyword and anything connected to that tag will pop up on the screen.
Many social bookmarking sites have a voting option where readers can vote on an article or click on it so others know how many people have read this post. The advantage of this is that the newest and best websites are usually listed on top. It saves a lot of time that otherwise would be spent siphoning through page after page of articles trying to find the one you're looking for.
"Disadvantages of Social Bookmarking"
As with any new technology or invention, we're always going to find some disadvantage to discuss or talk about. The main disadvantage of social bookmarking is that because it's so easy to use, many amateurs that are unfamiliar with the purpose of tagging are using it.
By improperly using tags or using the wrong kind of tags, the information may become cluttered and be almost similar to our traditional search engines.
Like anything else in our lives, the more you experiment with social bookmarking, the more you'll learn and the more you'll have to contribute.
"Good Social Bookmarking Content"
Social bookmarking is a great way to organize, save and share your website with others as well as see what they're sharing. Whether you're doing it to share with your friends or to help generate traffic to your website, the type of content you share will play a part in how interested they stay.
Your friends aren't going to be too demanding because, well, because they're your friends. However, if you expect to develop some interested readers and followers, here are some ideas on what some of the most popular social bookmarking content consists of.
Topics are important, but we're a world filled with people of all interests so you're always going to find someone that's interested in a certain topic, whether it's music, movies, current events, sports, etc. What's more important than the topic is how it's presented.
Unique and unusual is always a good idea. Most people that read an article that's unusual are going to be more likely to read it again, save it and pass it along.
They'll waste no time telling everyone they know that there's an article they just have to read. If you've ever read a story that was so outrageous you just had to shake your head, you know what I'm referring to. Make the article unique.
Controversial is always good, too. Everyone likes a good controversial debate or story to read and pass along. Unless you're too negative, taking a controversial stand on a major event often draws many comments.
Humor is always good. With the many sad events that are happening in the world day, we all need a good laugh. Whether you're writing a good story or posting a funny video clip, adding some humor to it will draw attention and inspire more readers.
Even the most mundane task is great if it's presented with humor. You ever watch Funniest Home Videos on television? If so, then you get my point!
Make sure your articles or posts keep up with the times. Current events are always a big hit with the public, especially when they're on social bookmarking sites that specialize in social news. However, make sure you keep up with the times. Don't post something about a current event that took place two months ago.
There really is no steadfast rule on what you can or cannot post on a social bookmarking site. These are just some ideas as to what some of the most popular and highly ranked articles are like. Each social bookmarking site is different.
You may want to spend a little time on several sites until you get an idea of the type of stories that are ranked the highest and getting the most readers. This will give you a good idea of which social bookmarking site will best meet your needs and give you the best success.
"Making Friends through Social Bookmarking Sites"
You've probably heard a lot of great publicity about social bookmarking sites and all the many neat features they offer the user.
There are plenty of them out there so they must be doing something right. What most people think of when they think of social bookmarking sites is how they allow you to share your favorite bookmarks and websites with your friends by just submitting them to the site. However, you'll also find many sites and articles that interest you on social bookmarking sites.
The best part is that it's easy to find these articles and websites. All you have to do is type in what you're looking for and you'll get many results. Most of the social bookmarking sites have numbers or votes next to them so you can choose the articles that are the most popular or most current.
There's a very good reason why social bookmarking sites are often referred to as intelligent search engines.
Although these are some of the most common reasons why people join social bookmarking sites, another reason many join these sites is to make new friends, particularly friends that share their interests.
The idea of meeting or becoming acquainted with people on the internet may sound strange to you, but millions of people do it every day and most of them do it on social networking or social bookmarking sites. Paying attention to certain users on social bookmarking sites can prove to be invaluable to you, especially if you find that you share the same interests.
You're probably wondering how you could possibly meet and make new friends on social bookmarking sites. Well, it's very easy and you'll be surprised at the many friendships that can develop this way. Say, for instance, that you have an interest in German shepherd dogs and type it into the search tool.
You find a very interesting article, so you take note of the user that added the article.
You later find similar articles that interest you by the same user.
You're beginning to think you may share some of the same interests, so you go to their profile and have the option to add them as a friend.
Of course, they'll usually have to accept you as their friend, but once they check out your profile and see your interests are similar, they'll be happy to be on your friend list.
By adding many friends this way, you'll build up quite a network of friends, which will help you to find many great websites and share them with each other. Who knows? You may start chatting with them and discover you have many more shared interests!
"Generating Traffic with Social Bookmarking"
Since online marketers have first got into starting up their own online businesses, the biggest concern has always been how to generate traffic.
We've heard many new business owners say they have the best product in the world and a real moneymaker if they could only get people to their website to check it out. Increasing traffic on websites is one of the most important things to the success of an online business. Social bookmarking is one of the most effective ways of doing this.
Social bookmarking is very popular today, especially for those that are trying to share their websites with others. As in any business, referrals are an excellent way to generate traffic to your business. In fact, it's easier to get traffic at your site through referrals than it is with traditional search engines.
The competition is so fierce out there; you have to have something compelling to motivate people your way.
There are many ways that you can get visitors to find your website but, with so much competition, you want a way that will get them there quickly. Social bookmarking is a great way to motivate them in your direction to your website.
Here are a few examples of how social bookmarking can be used to help generate traffic for your business.
Social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon have a ranking system where articles are ranked based on how much interest they generate and how currently they were posted.
Because so many people view these social bookmarking sites, they're a great way to get traffic to your website. You share your website with other users on StumbleUpon, Delicious, Digg, or one of the many other social bookmarking sites.
When sharing your website, make sure you choose good and relevant tag words so those looking for your product will easily find it. If your website is good, it's going to get a good rating, which will keep in on top and bring more traffic you way.
People that are members of the same social bookmarking site will see your tags and click on them to see your website. The more people that view your website and like it, the higher your website is going to be ranked.
When new people come to the site and type in what they're looking for, which happens to be what you're offering, your website will be one of the sites that shows up on the top of the search results because of it high rating.
With social bookmarking, it's all about going to the right sites, using the right tags and getting the best ratings.
Significance of Social Bookmarking.
Social bookmarking is the process of saving bookmarks to the World Wide Web instead of just to your web browser.
Once they're saved, you can view them at any time and from any place.
What makes social bookmarking even more significant is that it not only allows you to share your bookmarks with your friends, family members and even strangers, but it lets you access and view bookmarks that others have left.
When would social bookmarking be specifically helpful? Imagine you're a struggling intern studying medicine. A lot of your time is going to be spent doing research online through RSS
feeds, email newsletters and search engine results. While you've always been able to save your bookmarks in organized folders in the past, you're now finding this to be not as efficient as in the past.
It works great when it's done on the school computer and you're in school accessing it, but where is it when you're on your home computer. Social bookmarking would be your perfect solution here.
Your bookmarks would also be where you could easily find them. If you have a study partner, you can both share your study notes and research through social bookmarking.
With social bookmarking, you have a web of connections and resources that goes beyond just being limited to certain folders and certain individuals. It's fantastic what social bookmarking has done for the world and internet users.
What's the difference between bookmarking and social bookmarking? Bookmarking is saving the web address of a web site on your computer so you can view it later. You go to a page that you really like. You go to the top of the page and click on Favorites and Add to Favorites. It's that simple to bookmark on your computer.
Social bookmarking is when you're saving bookmarks to public website and giving them tag or keywords so they can be found later by you and others. This is done by registering with a social bookmarking site.
You can make your tags private so only you can find them or public so they can be shared by the whole world.
Many people are using social bookmarking today. While I may have given you the example of a student benefitting from social bookmarking, many people that wish to share their information with others are actually participating in social bookmarking.
Its popularity as an "intelligent search engine" is another reason why social bookmarking is used by so many.
Why shuffle through thousands of search engine results to find what you're looking for when you can go to a social bookmarking site and find current information you need quickly? Social bookmarking is time saving, convenient and fun.
"Why People Love Social Bookmarking"
Have you ever found a website you really loved so much that you bookmarked it to your favorites' list to show a friend? You're all excited about sharing this website with your friends the next time you see them. However, the next time you see them, you're at their house and the bookmark is on your computer at your house!
Don't you wish there were a way you could share all these websites with friends and family without dragging your laptop with you or sending them through emails? Apparently, you're unfamiliar with social bookmarking!
Social bookmarking gives you the ability and opportunity to save your favorite web browser bookmarks on a website of your choice so they'll always be easy for anyone to access.
Because these bookmarks aren't saved on your computer, you can access and view them from work or someone else's computer.
The ability to store and save your bookmarks on a website is only part of why people love using social bookmarking.
You can also share them with your friends and family members and even complete strangers. All they have to do is go to the social website and click on the tag or link you've left there. Remember all those great jokes you've gotten in the past that you wanted to share? Now you can do that very thing with social bookmarking.
Currently there are over 200 social bookmarking sites, so you can choose one or many of them. They all have similar and very special features to offer. Another great feature that you'll love about social bookmarking is the great search tools they offer.
No longer will you have to type what you're looking for in a search engine and shuffle through hundreds of results trying to find something of use.
Social bookmarking sites have current information submitted daily (even hourly), so you're always getting the latest news and articles. This is very useful if you're looking for important world or sporting news as many of these sites specialize in social news.
You type in what you're looking for and the most current topics will pop up for you.
Articles may also have votes from other readers so you know which articles you want to see first.
Looking for a product review? Who gives better product reviews than customers that have used the product? Type in the name you're looking for and you'll get the most current news and reviews.
Social bookmarking is awesome and extremely useful for many purposes. Check out some of the sites and it won't take you long to see why so many people love social bookmarking.
"Using Social Bookmarking as a Search Engine Tool"
Social bookmarking has many unique and special features. One of the most popular features of social bookmarking is how it allows us to share our favorite websites with others without having to be on the same computer the favorites were saved.
However, another feature that makes social bookmarking very popular and useful is its ability to act as a search engine.
If you've ever gone on a search engine to look for something in particular, you know that the keywords you enter can make the difference in the results you get back in the search.
Even with the best keywords used, you're still going to get hundreds of results, leaving you many links to browse through to find what you're looking for.
You can click on link after link and still not find what you're really looking for. Social bookmarking takes the work and drudgery out of searching for something online.
Search engines, as useful as they can be, are computer generated whereas the social bookmarking sites are people generated.
An individual person took the time to save a website and tag it so others could view it as well. By tagging the website in a unique manner, it's going to be much easier to find by your friends, family or even strangers.
When you look at many of the websites on social bookmarking sites, you'll be able to see how many other people have bookmarked it on their favorites list.
Many of the social bookmarking sites have the websites voted on or marked in a specific way so viewers can tell which websites are the most popular as well as which ones are the most recently posted. This can save a lot of searching time.
I remember in the past seeing something of interest that I wanted to share with a family member later only to discover I couldn't seem to find it quite as easily the second time around. Social bookmarking makes searching easy because the websites you want to share with others can be tagged with words, note and annotations that they'll know.
Have you ever searched for something through the search engines and thought you found the perfect article only to look on the bottom and see it was posted four years ago? You will not experience this with social bookmarking.
The websites are broken down into categories and tagged or voted on so you know which articles or websites are the ones you want to view first.
"Social Bookmarking versus Social News"
Social bookmarking is when you go to social networking sites and post your link for others to see. Not only can you post your favorite websites for others to see, but you can also go there to see what kind of interesting sites have been left by others.
Almost any topic of interest can be found through social bookmarking. Their search engine tool allows you to type in what you're looking for and have it instantly before you.
Social News
While some social bookmarking sites are designed for sharing links and all sorts of topics of interest, other sites like Reddit, Digg and Propeller focus more on the news-related topics like sports, politics, technology and similar topics. You'll often find bloggers on these sites discussing some new current event or a breaking headline.
"How Can I Benefit From Social Bookmarking & Social News"
Search engines are great. There's no doubt about it. They can provide us with information about almost any topic we're looking for. The bad thing about search engines, though, is that when you type what you want into the search engine, you're going to get so many results back, it's difficult to find what the best site to view is. It can take literally hours to find what you're looking for with search engines.
Social news and social bookmarking sites let you specifically focus on exactly what you want to see. Because new stuff is added all the time, you're going to find the most current information as well as the most popular right on top. Many of these sites offer viewers the opportunity to vote on articles and links. If you're looking for something on roses, you may find five different articles.
Four of the articles may only have a few votes whereas the fifth one may have a hundred votes. You can assume that this is the article that's going to be the most interesting to you. If you were to put the word roses into a search engine, you'd have thousands of results to browse through. Social bookmarking and social news sites can save you a lot of time.
The same can be said about social news. If you're looking for some late breaking news about your favorite actor, search engines may not have the most current topic on top, but you'll find it right on top in social news sites. What begin as a way to share your bookmarks and links with friends has turned into some fantastic social search engines.
"Using Social News Sites"
Almost anyone that spends a lot of time browsing the internet and saving bookmarks is familiar with social bookmarking. Social bookmarking is the ability to save your favorite websites and bookmarks on a website on the internet instead on your individual web browser.
All though social bookmarking has many advantages, one of the main advantages is that it allows you to access and view these bookmarks from any computer as long as they've been saved on a social news site. Social news sites are now becoming equally as popular as social bookmarking.
Using social news sites is extremely easy. The hardest part will be deciding which social news site to use since there are so many and new ones starting every day. Reddit, Digg, Propeller and Newsvine are some of the most popular social news
sites. The great thing about social news sites is that they're perfect for someone that is interested in late breaking news and not other websites. They don't have the chore of siphoning through tons of other articles just to find what they're looking for.
Social news sites are very similar to social bookmarking sites in that you will need to become a member if you wish to submit articles. Many people come to social news sites to read all the latest news on their favorite topics. Articles are often voted on by readers, with those getting the most or highest votes on top. This option makes it easy to find the best articles quickly.
Social news sites are also categorized by sports, politics, news events, entertainment, etc. It's almost like your Sunday newspaper, which has different sections. The unique thing about social news sites is that once you get to your favorite section, the best articles are right in front of you and easy to find.
The best way to find what you'll consider the best social news site is by browsing through a few and seeing what each one has to offer. Some cater to specific groups such as developers, men, women, etc. It will be very easy to find one that matches your interests as well as one that you're comfortable using.
If you enjoy reading and spending time on the internet, you'll love what social news sites have to offer. In addition to the most recent news stories, you'll also have the chance to share your favorite articles with friends and family members as well as reading articles they've posted. Check out some social news sites today and see what all the hype is about.
"Using Tags in Social Bookmarking"
Millions of people use social bookmarking today as a way to save and share their favorite websites with others. Social bookmarking sites are available all over the internet. You become a member of a social bookmarking site and this site becomes the home of any web pages you decide to save and share.
When you save an article to a social bookmarking site, you're usually asked to put in some tags.
Tags are like keywords that are used to help describe the website or article you're saving.
Tags not only help you to easily identify your articles but will also help others find your articles quicker and easier. If you found a fantastic article that you wanted to share with some friends, they'd have a difficult time finding your article without correct tags. Tags are also used in blog entries and social news sites.
Social bookmarking is often uses by online marketers, which make the proper use of tag words even more important. Social bookmarking is considered on one of the best online or network marketing tools around as long as it's used properly. Proper usage of tag words is vital to successful social bookmarking as well as online marketing.
For instance, you're doing a blog about the Minnesota Vikings football team. Some of the words you may want to use as tags are blog, Minnesota, Vikings or football. By giving a larger variety of tag words, you'll be making it easier for others to find your website without hours of searching and browsing.
Tags can be used in much the same way as clues in a game. If you're playing a traditional game of hide and seek and give clues that are not linked to the hiding place, the people looking for you will not be able to find you. The same principle applies to the use of tag words in social bookmarking. There better and more related they are to your website, the easier it will be to find your websites.
A tag cloud is another phrase used in social bookmarking. Tag clouds are a box that has several tags with the most popular tags in a larger and darker font that the other less important tags.
The important thing about tags and tag clouds is that they be as closely related to you website as possible. The more of these tags you use, the easier it will be to find your website. These are just some of the many features that make social bookmarking so popular and functional.
"The Simplicity of Social Bookmarking"
Social bookmarking is not only one of the easiest ways of saving your favorite websites and bookmarks, but it is also very easy. There are many different social bookmarking sites on the web today. Social bookmarking has become such a popular way to save and share your websites with others that many companies have developed social bookmarking sites.
The choice of which social bookmarking site you choose will depend on your personal preferences. Some of the social bookmarking sites specialize more in social news while others are perfect for your every day browsing.
You may want to do a little research of your own to see which ones appear to best meet your needs, especially if you're a novice at social bookmarking.
Delicious is probably one of the oldest and, still the most popular, social bookmarking site. I don't necessarily recommend one over the other, but for purposes of learning and helping you to get started, I'm going to use Delicious, also known as del.icio.us, as an example.
One of the first things you'll do when you get to the Delicious site is open up a free account, which is simple and fast. You'll be asked to add a couple of buttons on your web browser. These buttons are very important because they'll make it easier for you to add bookmarks. You'll have the Delicious button, the bookmarks button and the tag button.
The Delicious button is to get you to the Delicious site quickly without having to go to your favorites or type the URL in the address bar. The tag button is what you'll use when you want to save a website to the social bookmarking site, which in this case is Delicious.
Keep in mind that you can choose any number of social bookmarking sites. The bookmarks button will provide you with instant access to all your bookmarks.
Saving a website is easy with the use of the tag button. Let's say you're reading an interesting article on vegetable gardening and you want to save it or share it with others. You click on the tags button and a screen will pop up verifying that you want to save this page and asking for tags.'
Tags are little keywords that will make it easier for you and others to find your bookmarks. In this instance, you may want to use vegetables, gardening or growing vegetables as your tags. You can use one tag or several.
The more you use, the easier it will be for others to find your site. Because you have all these tags, you'll find it much easier to get to your bookmarks when you have several bookmarks.
The wonder of social bookmarking is that others can also find your favorite websites by typing in your tags. However, you also have the option of making your bookmarks private if they're not something you wish to share with the world.
Check out these sites and find what you've been missing by using conventional bookmarking methods!
"Social Shopping through Social Bookmarking"
Social bookmarking offers internet users many options for finding things of interest quickly and easily. Rather than go through the sometimes tedious searching with search engines, social bookmarking let's you quickly narrow your search down to what you're looking for.
Many of the social bookmarking sites will show you the most popular links as well as the ones most recently added. One area that social bookmarking has made fun and easy is social shopping.
Social shopping is becoming a popular activity for many individuals. Rather than browse through store after store online looking for a particular item, social shopping gives shoppers the chance to find what they're looking for quickly, particularly when the social shopping is done through social bookmarking sites.
Social shopping takes place in different forms such as ThisNext, Kaboodle, ProductWiki and MyItThings. Each of these social shopping websites offers something a little different for online shoppers. Kaboodle is an online shopping center where shoppers of similar interests can meet and shop.
ProductWiki is an online site that offers price comparisons and product reviews. Every shopper should have this site bookmarked. Each of these online shopping sites contributes towards making your online shopping experience one of a kind.
Social bookmarking can make social shopping fun and extremely easy, particularly when your most popular social shopping places are bookmarked.
Shoppers looking for new bargains or fun places to shop can go to their favorite social bookmarking sites and search away. If there are any new online shopping sites to go to, you're going to find them on your social bookmarking sties.
You're probably wondering how social bookmarking sites can have so much to offer for shoppers using social shopping.
No longer will you have to waste hours browsing online for the right store that sells what you're looking for at a price you can afford. I know I used to spend literally hours browsing and searching online only to discover I may be saving a few dollars but it took me hours to accomplish this.
Social bookmarking will eliminate all that time wasted looking for the best place for your social shopping. With social shopping through social bookmarking, you are just one click away from finding the most popular online stores and the best prices.
If you've been considering that latest Tommy watch, it won't take more than a few minutes to find out what other shoppers are saying about it. You'll also be able to find the online store that offers it at the best price.
One of the main advantages of social shopping is that it brings the many versions of many products all in one place for your shopping convenience. Social bookmarking makes social shopping fun, easy and convenient.
"Social News is the Offspring of Social Bookmarking"
Most of us have heard about social bookmarking since it's brought so much convenience to internet browsing and the ability to save our bookmarks on a website rather than our web browser. Social news is known as an offspring of social bookmarking.
Social news is very much like social bookmarking except it concentrates on and specializes in individual articles rather than saving complete websites.
The articles saved on social news sites come from top news sources such as Associated Press, Reuters, or they may also come from blog posts. They're the perfect solution for individuals that want to read late breaking news without having to sort through tons of other topics.
Some of the most popular social news sites include Digg, Newsvine, Reddit and Propeller, although there are many more. Social news websites are usually broken down into individual groups such as current events, politics, sports, entertainment, etc.
You'll also often find an area where readers can vote on the articles so the best ones are on top where they're easier to find. This is slightly different from social bookmarking sites, which instead will tell you how many times a certain website has been bookmarked.
Users of social news site enjoy these sites because it's like reading a newspaper and finding all the best articles on the front page as opposed to having to search through the entire newspaper. You go to the specific category you're interested in reading about and the hottest stories will be right on top.
Social news sites, like social bookmarking sites, are so much more efficient and convenient than using search engines because you don't have to browse through dozens or more links to find what you're looking for.
Bloggers find social news sites particularly helpful for generating traffic, especially if the most popular news subject happens to coincide with their subject matter.
Using a social news site is as easy as using a social bookmarking site. It's a matter of choosing the site you want to use and looking through the categories that interest you. You'll have to open an account if you want to submit new articles, although you won't need one if you only wish to read the articles already submitted.
While most social news sites cater to a large audience, some will target a specific group. Social news sites are a fantastic way to keep up on the latest news on your favorite topic. If you have a special news article to share with a friend, a social news site is the perfect solution.
"Most Popular Social Bookmarking Sites"
With so many social bookmarking sites available today, it's often difficult for a newcomer to know which site is the best one to join. Many people become members of several social bookmarking sites so they can make comparisons and see which one they like the best. Not everyone wants to or has the time to do this, however.
Therefore, I have made a list of some of the most popular social bookmarking sites and features that each one has to offer. Keep in mind that there really isn't a "best" social bookmarking site; it's more finding the one that best meets your needs. With so many social bookmarking sites out there, it's almost impossible to review every one of them, which is why I'm discussing the features of some of the most popular.
Digg and Delicious are consistently right up there on top. Delicious offers importing and exporting of bookmarks, commenting, sharing bookmarks, searching site and uses tags to help users save their content. When it comes to organizing your bookmarks, Delicious can't be beat.
Digg is the most popular social bookmarking site when it comes to functionality, overall design and is ideal for meeting people and finding new sites. Readers vote on websites by "digging" them. Digg is popular also as a social news site, offering late breaking news stories in many categories.
StumbleUpon has been around for a while now but recently has gained in popularity among social bookmarking sites. Once you download the StumbleUpon toolbar, it's very easy to use. When you find a website you want to save, you click on the StumbleUpon icon on your toolbar, which happens to be a thumb up sign. If you see an article you do not like, you give it a thumb down.
Reddit is a social bookmarking site that uses a karma system to rank websites and stories. The votes that websites get affect their karma points, which determine how high or low the websites will be when searched. If you're looking for a simple site (it's definitely no frills) and one that caters to social news as well, Reddit just may be what you want.
Furl is a popular social bookmarking site that lets you save web pages exactly as they looked when they were saved, regardless of how many changes were made to the site. Furl will help find others that share your interests. When you find a site you want to save, you just hit the FURL it Fast option. Many state that Furl is similar to Delicious.
Fark is a social bookmarking site where you'll want to go I you're looking for funny stories. As far as a serious social bookmarking site, it's somewhat disorganized and not real useful but it is popular with users. The one thing that many users didn't like about Fark is that the Fark administrators are the ones that determine which stories will show up on their front page.
"Social Bookmarking for Educational Purposes"
Bookmarking is saving your favorite websites to your web browser where they're always available for viewing. Bookmarking is a very handy and convenient feature because the websites can be accessed at any time as long as you are on the computer where they've been saved. Unfortunately, they cannot be viewed if you're on a different computer unless you've used social bookmarking.
Social bookmarking allows you to view your websites on any computer as well as share them with others. Social bookmarking is used for many purposes, both personal and business. Social bookmarking is extremely helpful for educational purposes.
Social bookmarking organizes your websites in much the same way as a librarian organizes the books. Library books are organized and categorized by title and subject. Social bookmarking sites are stored on a social bookmarking site and categorized by tags or keywords.
The tags give a description of what the website is about so viewers can find it easily.
Instructors and teachers can use social bookmarking as a way to find what other teachers are using for on a specific top of study.
With the use of tags, instructors can enter appropriate tags on the subject they're looking for and the most popular sites will show up in the search result.
If they're looking for a specific research matter or references to a topic, they can also find them easily through social bookmarking.
Instructors that wish to share their reference lists and research with other colleagues also use social bookmarking. With online schools so popular today, the use of social bookmarking is at an all time high today.
Teachers also use social bookmarking as a way to provide their students with research material and study guides outside of the classroom. Computers and the internet are widely used today in all schools from kindergarten right through colleges.
Teachers can add links to the social bookmarking sites where students can easily view them from their home, place of work or on their laptop.
All the students have to do is go onto the social bookmarking site, type in the appropriate tags and they have access to the website. The more the websites are viewed, the more they increase in popularity.
The convenience of this is that when other teachers see these sites, they know that they are popular sites and ones that are used by other instructors and students.
This is the beauty of social bookmarking. The ability to save and share important and educational links allows the teaching staff to spend less time looking for new material and devote more time to the students in the classroom.
"Quick and Easy Access to Social Bookmarking Sites"
Social bookmarking sites are the latest craze online. Actually, they're not very new as they've been around for quite a while now; however, their popularity continues to grow every day.
Social bookmarking sites give you the option sharing your website or link with others in a way that's much easier than emailing it to everyone on your contact list.
The advantage of using social bookmarking sites to promote your link is that you're not just limited to those on your contact list. Anyone that is interested in seeing your link can find it easily online through one of the many social bookmarking sites as there are well over 200 social bookmarking sites on the web.
If you have a business, imagine all the publication your link will be getting with so many social bookmarking sites promoting your link.
Even if you're just in it to make friends or to share your website with others, social bookmarking sites are a great way to show your website to the world.
However, with the hundreds of social bookmarking sites on the web, how do you know which sites to post on and how long is it going to take to find them all much less post on them?
Relax…don't worry. In addition to social bookmarking sites being available to post your links, you'll also find services that will help you quickly post on all the social bookmarking sites.
Although there are many such services, one service that comes to mind is Social Marker.
Social Marker is a popular service that will assist you in submitting your web pages and websites to social news and bookmarking sites. With the assistance of these social bookmarking sites, you can quickly and easily have your links posted on as many or as few of the social bookmarking sites as you'd like.
These services provide many special features that allow you to get the most out of social bookmarking and with ease.
You could manually add your links to as many social bookmarking sites as you want on your own, but imagine how time consuming that would be.
Not to mention all the toolbars you'd be downloading in the process.
These social bookmarking services take away all that time, effort and madness and make it simple. The great thing about most of these services is that they're free. They also work on almost any of the major web browsers.
You'll be amazed at how many backlinks you'll get and how this service will help to increase your traffic.
"Choosing Social Bookmarking Sites"
Social bookmarking is becoming extremely popular on the internet. With so many internet users today and so many wonderfully informative websites around, social bookmarking is a great way to get in touch with the websites that interest you without spending hours going through traditional search engine results.
Social bookmarking does more than provide you with articles and websites that interest you. They also provide you with an opportunity to share your stories and favorite websites with family members, friends and even strangers.
Choosing which social bookmarking sites to use will probably be the most difficult decision because there are hundreds of great sites. While many of them are very similar, each may have their own unique features.
Although sites like Facebook and Twitter are more often referred to as social networking sites, they're two very popular sites for making friends and sharing interests. However, navigation for people just looking for specific topics is not quite as easy as with many of the social bookmarking sites.
Some of the more common social bookmarking sites include StumbleUpon, Digg, Technorati Favorites, PlugIM, Del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia, Blinklist, Propeller and Bumpzee. Keep in mind that these are just a few of the many social bookmarking sites around. Currently there are over 200 sites. Don't be afraid to check a few of them out to see what you think.
You may also want to become a member of a couple of the sites as well. Some of the bookmarking sites require you to join before you can submit anything, but others will allow you to submit and search without joining.
These may be the ones that will interest you the most until you really get the hang of social bookmarking. It will also give you a chance to see what each of your favorites have to offer you.
Many user like Digg because you have the choice to vote (Dig it) on an article or bury it. The way the article is dug or buried will determine how high or low on the rankings it shows up. One of the oldest and most popular social bookmarking sites is Del.icio.us. You'll find a lot of interesting things on this site. StumbleUpon is equally popular.
Ma.gnolia is a social bookmarking site that offers many features for community building, which is very popular on the web today. If you're just beginning social bookmarking sites, you may want to try Blinklist. It's simple to use, easy to understand and offers many great features.
One of the first things you'll want to do when you find a social bookmarking site is install the button on your web browser. This is a very simple procedure and will make it much easier to use the social bookmarking sites.
"Social Bookmarking Tips"
Social bookmarking is the perfect way to organize and save all your favorite websites and pages. It's also a great way to meet others, whether it's for friendship or business purposes. If you're using social bookmarking for business purposes, such as to promote your online business, social bookmarking allows you to provide support to those that are supporting you.
If you're both working independently, you have the opportunity to provide a supportive network for each other. Social bookmarking can offer a lot of convenience and fun if it's done correctly. Here are a few tips you'll want to remember when social bookmarking.
"Spam Is Never a Good Idea"
Once you get the hang of social bookmarking and realize how much fun it can be, you're going to want to be submitting as many blogs or web pages as you can with the hopes that the readers will find it so interesting, they'll keep coming back.
This may not be your best idea. Start slowly so you'll develop the trust of the readers. Don't overwhelm them all at once or they'll look on you as spam. Remember, it's quality not quantity that counts. When you try to share too much too quickly, it's liable to result in members not even reading your content.
"Making Friends through Social Bookmarking"
If you're into social bookmarking for business purposes, it's important that you help others as they're helping you. You can't expect them to continue to share bookmarks with you, visit your pages and refer it to others if you're not willing to reciprocate.
Let them know that you care as much about supporting them as they do for you. Mentioning their work or services in your blogs is a great way to show support and develop a real friendship.
On the subject of making friends, your real name may not be that important online but your online personality sure is important. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to come across as someone that's experienced, knowledgeable and personable. You want to earn their trust in you and in what you're trying to promote.
If you have a screen name, use the same screen name all the time so they'll recognize you regardless of what site you happen to be on. Make sure your profile is something that will make you proud, regardless of who sees it. You're trying to build a reputation online so make it a good one.
"Tags Really Do Matter"
Few things will play a larger part in your pages being seen than your tags. I've often heard it said that the more tags you have, the better your chances of your websites being seen.
There's a lot of truth to that, but it's more important that you use appropriate tags. You shouldn't need more than 5 or 6 tags if they're correct tags, although you can get by with less. A couple of your tags should describe the category while using a couple more to help you be more specific.
"Social Bookmarking Software"
Internet marketers frequently use social bookmarking because it's one of the best ways to promote their businesses today, especially with the use of social bookmarking software. You can have the best website in the world but if you're not getting the traffic to your site, your business is going to suffer because of it.
Social bookmarking is the process of organizing, storing and saving your favorite websites and pages on another website rather than in your web browser. Social bookmarking allows you to share your websites with others as well as look at sites by other users. Social bookmarking, for the most obvious reasons, has become very popular today.
"Currently there are over 200 social bookmarking sites."
Social bookmarking helps generate traffic to your site. When you manually use social bookmarking to promote your business, you're going to have a lot of work ahead of you.
You'll have to register for an account in each social bookmarking site that interests you. If you choose to go with several social bookmarking sites, this can become very tedious. Social bookmarking software takes care of the tedious part and makes the process simple and fast for you.'
Many social bookmarking software are available on the market today. Most of them will act as auto-generating accounts and do the majority of the work for you, although some may require you to do some things manually.
Social bookmarking software will automatically submit your articles at specific time intervals and ensure the search engines find your sites faster. Although you tell it what to do and when, it does the work for you.
Some social bookmarking software will even allow you to load multiple titles, descriptions and profiles without being considered a spammer.
Social bookmarking software really is the way to go if you want to generate traffic but really don't have the time to do it yourself.
Social bookmarking involves more than just submitting your website to the social bookmarking site, although this is definitely the start.
Once your URLs have been submitted, you have to return to collect any RSS feeds and URLs that were created from their submissions.
You can choose to do these things manually, but again it can become very tedious and time consuming.
Social bookmarking software, along with social bookmarking pinging software, can take care of everything you need to get your website on the map and keep it there. It will save you a lot of time and this time can be spent on other areas of your busines
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