Top Social Bookmarking Sites and How to Use Them

We all know that we should be engaging in social bookmarking and social marketing for our online businesses in some way, but just as the over-abundance of marketing activities can be overwhelming, simply finding and identifying social bookmarking sites that are worth our time and effort can be daunting.  Your time is valuable to you and cannot be spent on activities that add little to no value to your online business, and as such, finding quality do-follow social bookmarking sites that will actually help your search rankings is often thrown to the site in favor of more immediate and apparent pressing needs.
This article will try to help you sift through this often dull and unrewarding task.  First, we will identify a handful of social bookmarking sites (not all will be of interest to your site directly).  More importantly, we will show why and how these are valuable so you can identify social bookmarking sites that work well for you.  Next we will offer a few good tools that you can use to automate your social bookmarking activities (this is the REALLY important step).

First, A Few Sites to Focus On

What makes a good social bookmarking target?  Most people engage in social bookmarking for one of two reasons: 1) either they want the SEO benefit that social bookmarks can provide, or 2) they hope to generate a following from their social bookmarking activities.  Ideally we would focus on both, but the reality is that not every page we publish or article we write will have a viral effect.  In addition, the SEO benefit of social bookmarks, while still important, can be deprecated due to the high amount of abuse and automation.
With that in mind, here are 15 social bookmarking sites, so do-follow and others no-follow. You do not need to use each of these, but rather use this list as a guide for how to qualify a good social bookmarking site.

1. Google+. The reason for this should be obvious.  As much as many of us groaned at the thought of another social network to become current on, Google+ is making it more and more difficult to ignore them.  In fact, they are nearly making it impossible by integrating themselves into their search results.  Add to the fact that getting +1′s is now a factor in their search algorithm, Google+ offers a compelling reason to become a part of their social network.
2. Twitter.  This as well should be no surprise.  Twitter is a bit of an odd social network in that they have remained relatively consistent and simple over the past few years.  While Facebook seems intent on overtaking our lives, Twitter is content with being the micro-blogging platform that offers website owners thousands of low-value links and the possibility of becoming viral quickly.
3. Delicious.  Delicious is one of the gradfather’s of the social bookmarking scene.  Although its popularity has dropped over the past several years in light of other mediums rising to prominence, this is still a great site to keep in your arsenal.
4. StumbleUpon.   StumbleUpon, like Twitter, has stayed remarkably true to its roots and to its original intent.  StumbleUpon gives website owner’s the ability to have their site indexed in a well managed category system which can be helpful.  In addition, the traffic from SU seems to have some staying power to it.
5. Pinterest.  Pinterest is the up and comer on this list.  The growth of Pinterest is well documented, as is the linking power that this site can throw your way.
6. Buzzflash.  This is one of many niche social bookmarking sites.  This is a site for political news, blog posts, and the like. Niche blogs like this are highly valuable. This is also a “do follow” social bookmarking site.
7. Reddit. Reddit originally started out as a site geared more towards tech heads, but in the past few years they have expanded and allowed anyone to start up a niche Reddit channel.  Once again, this provides you with the best of two worlds: high PR and powerful site along with the power of niche specification.
8. Fark.  Fark is one of the older social bookmarking sites and has proven itself to stay editorially true over time.  This site is geared towards news stories and releases.
9. Chictini. Chictini is a bookmarking site geared towards women and specifically towards fashion.  Do follow niche sites like this are a powerful tool in your overall set of sites you use.
10. Look for more…you can find a nice list of niche sites here.

Social Bookmarking Automation – Tools and Tips

Before we get into this section, allow me to first offer this warning: automating your social bookmarking is nearly required, but it can easily be used in the wrong way thus invalidating any work you put into it.  Social bookmarking is an activity that is easily “gamed” by automation software and unfortunately it is rather easy to identify when it has been “gamed”.  The goal with social bookmarking is to appear as natural as possible.  When using automation software, your goal should be the same is it would be if you were to do your bookmarking by hand.  A proper social bookmarking campaign will result in improved search engine rankings as well as real visitors to your site.

With that said, here are three tools worth looking into:

• SocialAdr.com – SocialAdr.com uses the power of crowdsourcing to generate a very natural link profile and bookmarks to your pages.  They offer both a paid version and a free version, however, for the overworked online business owner, the paid version is highly worthwhile.  With 1-2 minutes per day you can get your site bookmarked across literally thousands of sites from real bookmarking accounts at a natural pace.  Currently SocialAdr uses 21 bookmarking sites which is certainly a good number, but most importantly, those sites are kept updated on a regular basis.  This is by and far the easiest system we have used.
  
• Bookmarking Demon – If one were to describe Bookmarking Demon in a word it would be “powerful”.  This software gives you an incredible amount of flexibility, automation, and distribution power.  The number of options you have as a marketer are astounding.  The product of this power, however, is naturally some level of complexity.  Learning how to use Bookmarking demon does take a bit of time, and configuring it properly will also take time.  Fortunately they have provided a free guide, or you can also buy this tutorial which is quite comprehensive and will help you guard against those things which could trip up your campaign.
  
• Social Submitter – the folks over at SEOTools have developed a nice little piece of software that allows you to accomplish much of the same things as Bookmarking Demon, but without the same level of complexity. Naturally this does limit your options a bit, but if you are looking for a happy medium between SocialAdr and BookmarkingDemon, then this may warrant a look.

Social Bookmarking Sites – Properly Done, Proper Results

For any person who publishes content on a regular or semi-regular basis, social bookmarking sites can be a fantastic ally for your efforts. Social bookmarking sites help round out an overall SEO picture, can give you exposure which generates additional external links, and are very good at driving long-tail keyword results in the search engines.
But social bookmarking is time consuming.  To that end, work smart, choose where you will submit, and automate as much as possible.  Then focus on the other parts of your business that require more of your time!