If you’ve seen the “bookmark” buttons on other people’s blogs and you’re wondering how this works, it’s quite simple.
First you have to get your own account(s) which are usually free. Just sign up (username & password) and add them to your browser’s favorites list so you can have them handy.
When you’re done signing up, go back in and add your own websites & blogs. Let’s use Technorati for this example:
note: Technorati will only allow you to add blogs not your MySpace or Facebook pages!
After you’re done with Technorati, you might want to put yourself on other bookmarking places like StumbleUpon, Digg and Delicious, just to name a few.
These places are social bookmarking networks. They allow everyone who uses them, including YOU to make lists of your favorite bookmarks online. The more people add your blog to their list, the more exposure (popularity) your blog receives.
In other words, if you have 10 friends who bookmark or favor your blog on their lists, you become 10 times more popular than you would be if none of your friends bookmarked you. Make sense?
Why do you need to be bookmarked?
Your blog postings are no good to anyone if NO ONE knows about them. Having people favor your blog with the use of these social media bookmarking networks, can really get you noticed!
Now, you’re going to have to decide which other networks you want to promote your blog at. Delicious is a very popular place and will allow bookmarking of any kind of site including Facebook, Multiply, Yahoo and MySpace (which are online communities).
Sign up for Delicious and repeat the process above. Log in and promote your own blog postings with Delicious.
As you can imagine, this can take some time & effort to do “manually” after each post. If you want to be seen on Google, Yahoo, Technorati, Delicious, StumbleUpon and the rest, there’s a simpler way to do it.
Visit places like AddThis.com and get the all-inclusive button with one code. Add the code at the bottom of your blog postings and then use this button to bookmark your blog entries without ever having to leave your site!
How does this work?
The AddThis button opens up a menu that lets you choose the places you want to bookmark your blog. For most places, you need to have an account which shouldn’t be a problem since they’re free.
Let’s use Twitter for this example. Twitter is in the #1 spot for social media exposure. It’s so popular that even businesses, television reporters and celebrities are using it!
As soon as you’re done posting your new blog entry, you’ll want get people’s attention so they can notice you. This is the 1-liner on Twitter alerting others about my blog:
You will not have to type anything into the box. You won’t have to visit the Twitter website; AddThis does it all for you. Notice it’s telling Twitter the name of my blog AND the title of my post because it’s taking the information straight off of my page.
Now you can repeat this process with all the other social media networks, using just this single button on your blog.
What is this good for?
Let’s say you’re going to do a Walk-a-Thon for Fibromyalgia in May and you want folks to join. Paid advertising can be expensive and the whole point is to make money for your cause, not spend it.
You write up a blog entry and then you need to reach your audience. Who will read your blog if no one knows about it? The quickest way to get noticed (free) is to send out alerts to as many networks as possible!
The AddThis button will allow you to send your blog entry to Facebook and MySpace and Multiply which are dynamic communities with memberships in the millions!
If you’re not convinced that this really works, look at my statistics for the week:
These are Google stats and I know for a fact that Twitter is my friend! At least 200 visits are referrals from other networks. This means someone saw my bookmark(s) or my 1-liner(s) and decided to come see my blog.
Considering the fact that I don’t blog as often as the more savvy bloggers, I think this is good enough exposure. I know I can definitely get more traffic when I’m promoting something important like my crafts or a contest.
That old adage, “you get what you put into it” really makes a lot of sense now. It all depends on how much time & effort I put into it.
And the best part is, I don’t have to “waste” all my time trying to get attention when I have tools like AddThis and Twitter (among others) to do the heavy jobs for me!
*Learn to use these tools (use regularly) and you’ll really be glad you did!
Please Bookmark Me! :)
