Business Blogging and Social Bookmarking
Business blogging’s most arduous and time consuming task is getting that relevant content published on a daily basis.
You’ve optimized for search engine visibility, you’ve submitted your site to directories, you’ve been monitoring your analytics and tracking conversions.
Working Hard for the Content
You’ve been working pretty hard for the content, so why not let that content work harder for you. Social bookmarking is a method to get more from your blog promotion campaigns as well as increased brand exposure.
Probably every post that you have read has present at the bottom some kind of icon for you to click to bookmark that post, e.g., digg, Diigo, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Newsvine, etc. If your posts do not offer your readers the same option, it may be time to research social bookmarking sites and choose which of the many that are offered appear to have a community that aligns with your target market.
“What makes social bookmarking important to marketers is it’s another cost-effective way to augment search marketing efforts, distribute content, and aid branding.
[..]
Marketers can use social bookmarks to allow visitors to share their content. In this sense, bookmarks have forward-to-a-friend functionality. Additionally, marketers can post their content to social bookmarking sites to drive traffic and links to their sites. A mortgage company could post a calculator to determine monthly payments; for example, an e-tailer could add social bookmarking to allow shoppers to show products to friends.”
Give Customers Ways to Distribute Your Content
A salesman in the mid-west called one day amazed (he had been a reluctant blogger and did so only under threat from his manager - he has since changed his tune) to report that he had sold a 75′ yacht to a buyer who flew in from Seattle based on the blog post the salesman had written about the boat. The post had come to his attention via a friend who had sent it via the “email this to a friend” option.
The same principle applies to providing your readers the options to save your post to the bookmarking sites that you’ve provided icons for. Of course, if you sell boats, digg wouldn’t be your best market, but StumbleUpon, which has less tech emphasis, would be an excellent choice.
“Because social bookmarking is relatively new and growing fast, now’s the time to test and get up to speed. Do some limited testing to see how it performs as part of your marketing mix. Once you dip your toe into the social bookmarking waters, you just might find it’s worth diving in.”
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Tags: Blog Promotion, business-blogging, conversions, diigo, search_engine_visibility, social-bookmark-marketing, social_bookmarking_sites, target_market