Imagine a situation when you are browsing the Internet or social media on your way to work by bus and you come across an interesting article that you want to read, but you don’t have time to do so at that moment. If you don’t tag it in some way, there’s a slim chance you’ll be able to get back to it in the evening. In the rush of daily duties, you may even forget where it was. The solution to this problem is social bookmarking, which is the process of saving a specific website to a social bookmarking platform so you can revisit it later. Read on to find out more.
Social bookmarking – table of contents:
- What are social bookmarking sites?
- How to use social bookmarking sites?
- 8 social bookmarking sites you need to know
- Summary
What are social bookmarking sites?
You may associate the idea of bookmarks with the functionality of a web browser, where such a feature is built in. However, its biggest limitation is that you can only open them on a particular device and in the browser in which they were created. Social bookmarking sites allow you to go back to your created bookmarks from anywhere and on any device. You can keep your list with you at all times, plus you can share it with friends and a wider audience.
Social bookmarking sites are more than just a place to store interesting websites, posts or images you’ve found on the Internet. By sharing them, you create your own collection, which can also be viewed and commented on by other Internet users. This allows people to find individuals with similar interests, inspirations and collections on a particular topic in one place. If you come across such a bookmark, you won’t have to search the Internet yourself. You will get everything on a plate. That’s why it is safe to say that they work like an improved Internet search engine, because by typing in a given keyword, you get not only individual content, but entire collections tailored to the search term.
Apart from the benefits for the users themselves, such social bookmarking sites also benefit the brand. It’s a great way to increase reach, improve SEO and boost brand awareness. In a nutshell, it’s a brilliant content promotion tool that can increase traffic to a given website and improve search engine ranking. The use of social bookmarking sites is therefore an important step to create quality links that can help you climb to the top of Google search results.
How to use social bookmarking sites?
Of course, you can use them as a private place to store interesting content that you come across while searching the Internet or social media. However, social bookmarking sites are also a tool that can be cleverly used for other purposes.
You can share each collection with other users. So it can serve as a folder of inspiration and guidance for your team. It will certainly be a more interesting and understandable way of conveying information than giving boring guidelines. Here you can put interesting marketing campaigns or sample projects for inspiration. This way, your team will save time and will be able to easily return to the specific content.
Social bookmarking sites also provide important information about users and current trends on the Internet. By observing what is most frequently shared today, you can identify an emerging trend and create materials tailored to it more quickly.
8 social bookmarking sites you need to know
There are quite a few social bookmarking sites that have been created to this point, and each of them is slightly different from one another. To choose the best site for you, check out the following descriptions:
Pinterest is a popular network that most people are familiar with. It is mainly used for sharing content in graphic form i.e. images, photos or infographics. By creating a profile there, you can save (pin) interesting content on thematic boards. How does it work? Let’s say you’re looking for inspiration for a small bathroom renovation and you search Pinterest for this purpose. If something catches your eye, you can pin it to a specific board, so you won’t miss anything and you’ll have the whole collection in one place.
Pocket is available in a free and paid version. With the paid version of Pocket, you can annotate, highlight, and add notes to pieces you’re reading. It has an interesting interface that lets you not only save articles, but also sort them from the oldest to the newest and add them in a list of favorites. It also allows you to archive and tag them. On the main screen, you have access to popular entries. Articles saved in Pocket are available to read even if they are deleted from the original server. An interesting feature of this site is that it saves your place and brings you right to the section of the article you were reading before closing out.
Mix
This is one of the most popular social bookmarking sites which allows you to save and share various materials. It lets you store interesting photos, videos, stories and articles. Users can also input their own interests to see content offered by others that are relevant to those interests. It greatly facilitates getting useful and interesting information.
Digg
Digg is a site that provides the most interesting information on a variety of topics from around the world. You can like, share or bookmark each of the available articles. In Digg, content is arranged according to its popularity on the Internet, which lets you learn about the prevailing trends.
Slashdot
Slashdot is a social bookmarking site that provides news on various topics related to science, technology and politics. Any content available there is moderated by a team of experts, which may suggest that it is at least pre-filtered news and you are unlikely to find fake news there.
Reddit has been around since 2005 and operates a bit differently than the portals mentioned above. Just like in the previous ones, you can upload any content including links or images. The difference is that here users submit posts that other users ‘upvote’ or ‘downvote’ based on if they like it. Of course, more upvotes means more shares and a greater chance of reaching a large audience.
Dribble
Dribble is a beautiful site aimed at designers. It’s not only a great place to find inspiration, but also to present your designs to a wider audience.
Scoop.it
The unique feature of Scoop.it is that the platform collaborates with companies. In addition, it is a publishing network that aggregates content, so it is a great place to publish and promote your own links. By properly using Scoop.it, you can get better quality links to your blog and great exposure.
Summary
The above list probably brought you a little closer to the available options and the way individual pages function. They are not only a great way to store interesting materials, but also a promotional tool with great potential. They are still underestimated, but if used properly, they can bring many benefits with little effort. Choose the page that suits you best and start working to improve brand awareness and gain a better position in the search engine.
Read also: Top 5 video interviewing tools.
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