All Entries Tagged With: "Social Bookmarking"

Enjoy These Do-Follow Social Bookmarking Sites

Social bookmarking is one way to promote your blog. The following list of social bookmarking websites offer do-follow links:

http://rapidpicks.com/
http://blogmarks.net/
http://buddymarks.com/
http://digg.com/
http://ez4u.net/
http://ma.gnolia.com/
http://mylinkvault.com/
http://spurl.net/
http://a1-webmarks.com/
http://backflip.com/
http://bibsonomy.org/
http://blogmemes.net/
http://bmaccess.net/
http://bookmarktracker.com/bt/home
http://connectedy.com/index.php
http://corank.com/
http://furl.net/
http://givealink.org/cgi-pub/bookmarklet/bookmarkletLogin.cgi
http://mister-wong.com/
http://mixx.com/
http://mypip.com/index.html
http://myvmarks.com/
http://newsvine.com/
http://oyax.com/
http://plugim.com/
http://propeller.com/
http://shoutwire.com/
http://squidoo.com/
http://syncone.net/
http://tedigo.net/index.cfm
http://www.spicybookmark.com

Now, keep in mind that social bookmarking is not about the links. It’s about marketing your blog in such a way that people with similar interests can find you easily. But getting inbound links that pass off link juice is a nice bonus.

November 13, 2008 | Allen | Comments 6

6 Reasons Blogging Is a Good Marketing Strategy

We have our own reasons for believing that blogging is a great marketing tool, but Christine Imamshah shares a few good reasons herself:

6 Reasons Blogging Is a Good Marketing Strategy

By Christine Imamshah

Blogging is something that anyone can do. It is extremely popular now and there is no end in sight for its popularity. There are thousands of new blogs created every day. Now, initially when I first thought of blogging I felt is was not for me since I imagined it to be a difficult thing to do. Not so I have since found out. This article will cover six reasons why you should blog.

There are many reasons why you should blog, here are 6 of the main ones in my opinion;

1. Blogging is fast to get setup with. There are free hosts where you could get a completely free blog but it would be my recommendation that you at least get your own domain name and hosting to set up your blog. Then I would suggest you use the easiest blogging software which is WordPress to build your blog. Blogging is fun and it is relatively easy. These days with the elections upcoming there are many people political blogging and people enjoy it because it is like discussing current events with others online. The key to good blogging is unique and interesting content. You want to engage your readers so they keep coming back and interacting with you.

Yes, a blog is fairly quick to set up, but there are pitfalls. WordPress is a challenge for first time users. You can get around that by using a free blog host like Blogger.com, but I wouldn’t recommend that. You have no control over a blog on a free host. They set the guidelines and you have to follow them. Own your own domain name and you set the rules.

2. You can make money blogging. You can put a number of different types of ads on your blog, which, when clicked through and a purchase is made you get a commission. One of these would be Google AdSense ads but there are many others you can do a search for and see if they fit with your blog’s topic. You can also use your blog as a traffic director by having your affiliate links on it and directing your visitors to check those links out. Also, if you have your own products you can direct your visitors to those if you have them at a separate website or point them out at your blog.

Yes, you can make money selling ads, but if you are using a blog as a marketing tool for your business, I’d hold these types of advertising arrangements to a minimum.

3. You can build your list via your blog. If you are looking to build a list of subscribers to your blog, which you definitely should do if you are trying to make money blogging, then you can very easily do this by having an opt-in form at your blog.

I definitely recommend using your blog to build a list. Not only that, you can promote your blog with a blog promotion newsletter.

4. Blogging helps you to create your brand. Basically you are being yourself, or should be, at your blog and your readers begin to know you by this.

True. You can learn more about this at Blog Content Provider.

5. Blogging allows communication between you and your readers via the comments that they can leave about your posts. The world is all a buzz about interaction online and a blog is a perfect format to accommodate this.

Blogging is a good way to interact with the marketplace, but not all blogs necessarily have to approach it this way. It’s entirely up to you.

6. Blogging can help you keep up with a lot of the Social Networking communities as well as there are plugins that allow you to automatically update Twitter for one example. Social networking is growing rapidly these days as the new way to do online marketing. It is a different type of marketing than in the past but you definitely want to partake in some of these communities and you can also invite your friends at these places to visit your blog and leave you a comment.

Social networking is gaining in popularity and is a big benefit to blogging. If you use the Blog Content Provider basic blogging service then you’ll get daily social bookmarking thrown in.

The internet is all about interaction and blogging is a fun, fast and easy way to develop your own readership and interact with them.

To Your Success,

Chris

Christine Imamshah is a full time internet marketer. You should visit her blog here at http://www.christineimamshah.com and get a Free report about internet success. Please leave a comment also.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christine_Imamshah

Blog marketing is still fairly new and there is no real definitive way to get it done. Learn more about using your company blog as a marketing tool.

October 16, 2008 | Allen | Comments 3

Does Social Media Traffic Bounce?

If you’ve been blogging and bookmarking for any time at all you’ve likely heard that social media traffic receives a high bounce rate. I have seen that in some cases, but I recently checked my traffic at some of the social media sites that I frequent and I’ve found that just the opposite is true. The following statistics represent traffic from popular social media sites within the last month for a blog that I write for poetry, a popular blog within that niche.

All of these bounce rates are well below the average for blogs, which tend to have high bounce rates by nature. Most blogs are around 80% bounce rate due to people just reading one post and moving on. It’s interesting to note that my bounce rate from Technorati and BlogCatalog are both considerably higher – 71.43% at each site. Likewise, at forums targeted specifically to the poetry niche market, I have higher bounce rates (75% at one), and my bounce rate from other poetry blogs are also high, some of them reaching to 75% or 80%. What gives?

I’d also like to note that my bounce rate at Digg is 100%, but I’ve only had one visit from Digg in the last month (I’ve concluded that Digg is not a good place for bookmarking my poetry site).

Traffic Figures Unveiled
Before moving on, I’d like to point out what my traffic numbers at these sites are (you’ll see that some of them are quite low):

You could argue that the sampling from most of these sites is too small to be really analyze the data effectively, but I disagree. One would expect that the higher the traffic number from any traffic source would increase the bounce right, but that hasn’t been the case at StumbleUpon. In fact, I’ve historically received high traffic numbers from the StumbleUpon community. But I’ve seen my bounce rate get lower and lower. I think that’s very significant.

LitMixx is a new social community that I started within the Mixx umbrella. It’s focus of course is on literary bookmarking – poetry, fiction, journalism, nonfiction, etc. It’s only about a week-and-a-half old so the data is very fresh and I don’t have a full month of data to analyze, but what I do have is significant, particularly since there are only 6 members in the community right now. I’ve only just started promoting it.

My big surprises are with Reddit and Furl. I really did not expect to get as much traffic from Furl as from other sources such as Delicious and Mixx. I consider those communities much more interested in arts and literary topics. I guess not. But Reddit is the real surprise because it’s mostly a news site and if I got any traffic from it at all I’d be happy. What I sense from these numbers is that Reddit users will only click a link to visit a site if they’re really interested in the topic, but if they click on a link and read the material then they are more likely to stick around if they like something. Reddit users, in other words, are more conscientious. I’m going to have to do more experimenting with Reddit.

Critical Factors For Social Bloggers
I believe my lowering bounce rate at StumbleUpon can be credited to just one thing: Consistency. I have been a consistent poetry blogger for almost a year now. And during that 11 months I have Stumbled blog posts on a regular basis. I have attracted the following of several of my friends who vote on and comment on many of the posts. Even people who are not regular readers of poetry blogs like my blog because

It’s attractive
I write interesting posts
Though I write on literary topics, I do not write “stuffy” literati stuff that is over the average layperson’s head
I write every day, but only Stumble posts occasionally (in other words, I don’t spam them)

I think these are critical factors. If you have an attractive blog with interesting writing then you’ll attract more followers. Social media users in particular care about the writing style of your blog posts. I’m talking about people are interested in more than just “share yours and I’ll share mine.” I’m talking about people who care about real content that is interesting, lively, and well written. The StumbleUpon community is largely made of people who are there because they like the interaction with other people who care about good content. The same with the Mixx community; that’s why I’m excited about the new literary community I’ve created in LitMixx. I’m anxious to see how well it does.

New Visits And Average Time On Site
A study of the new visitors and the time they spend on my blog is just as interesting as the traffic and the bounce rate are. Consider these numbers:

Again, I’m surprised by Reddit. All five of my visitors from that site within the last month had visited the blog before. Either they are subscribers (which I have no way of knowing), or they are friends of mine from another social site, or they have visited the site before from a link saved to Reddit. Whichever the case, they spent a lot of time on the site. Only one of them bounced (left the blog without sticking around to read more than one post) and the average pages the five visited was 3.0. Incredible!

Note that these numbers only reflect a modest number of bookmarks at each site. For instance, since July 9, I’ve bookmarked at each of the above sites this many times:

While these numbers represent how many times my poetry blog has been knowingly saved at these sites by myself or someone else, they do not represent how much time I’ve spent voting for other sites submitted by others or making friends and networking. The time I spend at StumbleUpon on those activities is far more than what it is at any of the others, though this may change since the start of LitMixx.

StumbleUpon, I’m convinced, is the best place to go if you want new visitors to your website, but be prepared for those visitors not sticking around very long. I see StumbleUpon as much like sending out a direct mail piece. You might send out a lot of mailers and get just a meager response. But from those who do respond, if your content is solid then you’ll see some fabulous results. That’s been my experience.

Looking at the bounce rate of the poetry-related forums and blogs that I comment on, I’d say that the small amount of traffic that I get from those is due to the trust that other bloggers have with their readers. But the high bounce rate can be attributed to a higher degree of discrimination with regard to tastes among those who have a higher interest in the topic. In other words, poets tend to know more about what they like and don’t like with regard to poetic commentary whereas non-poets who read about literary topics may enjoy reading an in-depth analysis of a topic even if they are not as familiar with it because they’ll have less to disagree with.

Conclusions
Bottom line conclusion: I think social media bookmarking works if you do it consistently long-term. Most people still only bookmark their content occasionally. I bookmark my content somewhere every day, though I don’t bookmark it at the same place everyday (and I think that is vitally important). Another thing that makes a big difference is the number of friends you make at the social sites you frequent. At those sites where you have fewer friends, you’ll likely get less traffic and higher bounce rates. At those sites where you have more (and more loyal) friends, you are more likely to get more traffic and lower bounce rates.

These results may reflect what literary blogs are capable of, but one other aspect to consider in bookmarking is making sure you approach the right target. Where you bookmark makes a huge difference. Diggers have less interest in poetry, for instance, than Mixxers and Stumblers. They have a greater interest, however, in technical topics. And I’d always consider that.

Learn how you can have your blog bookmarked
at a different site every day for $100.

August 09, 2008 | Allen | Comments 0

Delicious Gets A Facelift

delicious Earlier this week I blasted Propeller for its new look. It clearly was a step down. Today I’ve got another social bookmarking service as my target. And this time I’m going to praise them for their new look.

Delicious did things the right way. We heard about Delicious planning a new look last year. And it took every bit of the entire year to tinker, test, and roll it out. It is evident that AOL didn’t go through that trouble to introduce the new version of Propeller. But here’s what I like about the new Delicious:

It’s beautiful – The new design is a huge improvement over the old the design. Bravo!
It’s not a drastic change – Yes, Delicious looks different, but it’s not a drastic change. The format is still basically the same as it was before. It just looks a little bit more Web 2.0, or 21st century.
The bookmarking process was streamlined – Propeller gets kudos on this, but unlike Propeller, Delicious didn’t drop any essential features. They kept all the same features as before, but now they’re prettier and work better.
A new domain name – If you type in the old URL – del.icio.us – you’ll be redirected to the new one at http://delicious.com. That may seem insignificant, but it isn’t. Delicious is popular enough that people will hear about it from a friend and try to type it into their web browser. What will they type? No one will intuitively figure out del.icio.us, but almost everyone will automatically go for delicious.com. It’s intuitive and it was a brilliant move.
I didn’t lose any friends from my network in the process – Propeller killed my friends. Delicious saved them. Do I really need to elaborate?
Figuring out subscriptions is easier – I couldn’t figure out how to start a subscription with the old Delicious. I’ve already started two with the new Delicious. Great going guys!
The tag cloud is cool - I’m not a big fan of tag clouds, but when I click on the “Tags” link in my profile, I see a big tag cloud with all of my tags and it looks cool. At a glance, I can see what my most popular tags are. I can do the same with my network of friends. Awesome!
Saving bookmarks from my network of friends is just like it used to be - Wow! Can you do that? Propeller didn’t. They made it more cumbersome even while they made other aspects of their service less cumbersome.

I like the new Delicious. I will likely use it more often now. I will definitely use it more often than Propeller. Before Propeller’s remake, I liked it better than Delicious but not as much as StumbleUpon or Mixx. Now, Delicious has moved into my No. 3 spot and Propeller is dropping. Aren’t facelifts fun?

August 01, 2008 | Allen | Comments 0