While I am an avid user of Del.icio.us, of course less than the prolific Rubel, I often have a difficult time explaining to small and large businesses why they should be looking at social networking, and social tagging particularly.

I’ve told you before how I frequently watch Digg for breaking news (and I’ve made some great friends and connnections there as well).  But, del.icio.us is more of an enigma.

I can’t use it for breaking news, because it’s just not refined enough for my segment.  And, because most of the people I deal with are not large scale clients (ie Ogilvy or Revlon), their small businesses often have very little reach, if any, on the social site.  At this point, I rarely use it except for my own benefit in saving great stories and autoposting them to my blog.

However, Rubel, the del.icio.us expert, has written a linkbait post (no shame in that, it’s smart marketing) detailing what he’s learned on Del.icio.us.  However, what I took away from it was not the list that he wrote, but the para explaining his use of the service.  I think it is very helpful for those of you who’ve been waiting to test the waters.  Here’s a snippet:

If you are trying to understand social bookmarking and tagging, I highly recommend you read his piece on Delicious and see what you can garner from it for your own use.