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Marcomguy
01-10-2009, 12:50 PM
Some marketing experts advise linking to your own web content on sites like Digg and Stumble Upon. Is this a cool thing to do? Or is that considered too self-promotional for social networking sites.

Unless what the experts are really suggesting between the lines, and what everyone probably tacitly understands, is you create a fictitious persona in Digg etc. and then link to your content.

vangogh
01-11-2009, 12:25 AM
Do you mean submitting your own content to sites like StumbleUpon and Digg?

The important word in social media is social. Each site is a community of real people. With social voting sites like Digg and SU the community votes on content and if enough people vote up a submission it can land on the front page, drive traffic, and then later some of that traffic may link to your content.

Many social media links are rel="nofollow" so they aren't directly valuable when it comes to Google.

Let's take a step back and think about a forum, which essentially operates under the same principles. Imagine someone registers here and their first post is to tell us about a wonderful new product they discovered with a link back to their site. What are you going to think of that person? Imagine their first 5 posts all include links back to their site. Now what do you think? Are you going to buy their products?

If someone does that here you probably won't even see the links since the post will be deleted and the account will be banned. Why? Because it's just self promotional spam that contributes nothing to the forum.

Does that mean you can never link back to your site on a forum? Not at all. If you're contributing to the community and someone asks a question which you've written a blog post about there's nothing wrong with giving a short answer to the question on the forum and then link back to your post for more details.

Of course if you start linking back to your site in every post, even if you have been a valuable member, you'll lose that reputation and start to be seen the same as the person who posted links on all their first few posts. But if you mostly contribute to the community with an occasional link back to your site both the community and you can benefit.

It's basically the same with sites like Digg and SU. If you open an account and quickly start submitting your own content, people are going to view you as someone who isn't interested in contributing to the community, but rather someone just looking to promote to the community. It's unlikely others will vote on your content. If you mostly contribute to the community with an occasional submission of your own content most people will probably be fine with that.

Again many of the links you would get from social media sites aren't passing any search engine value. The value is usually in having your content liked and voted up by the community so more people see it. Some of those people will later link to your content with links that do pass value in the eyes of search engines. If the community thinks your submitting content just for the marketing or search engine value it's unlikely your content will be voted up.

Marcomguy
01-11-2009, 09:12 AM
Thanks, vangogh. That was a detailed and very clear explanation.

It's definitely something worth trying. I'll just have to somehow carve out the time to start digging and stumbling. (The latter comes easily to me!)

vangogh
01-11-2009, 10:43 AM
The best way to go about it is find a couple of social media sites you actually like and that are relevant to your site. Then join and just participate with the idea of contributing to the community. Most social media communities do not like to be marketed to. The Digg community often screams spam just because the content submitted originated on a site with seo or marketing in the title.

You'll get more benefit if you become an active and helpful member than if you go in with the idea of trying to market yourself.

Shaun
01-22-2009, 01:03 AM
If all you do is promote your stuff then you aren't going to get anywhere. If you promote your stuff but also promote others stuff and help the community you will have a much better chance of succeeding.

vangogh
01-22-2009, 01:35 AM
Exactly Shaun. The important word in social media is social and each site is a community of people. If you can find a way to give something to the community, you can usually get something back. If all you want to do it take from the community, you'll find it closes off to you in a hurry.

KristineS
01-23-2009, 12:49 PM
Giving back to the community is something I always mention when telling people about social media. It's amazing how fast people can pick up on the fact that a newbie is only there to sell. Most of those sorts of people don't get very far.

Harold Mansfield
02-06-2009, 02:09 PM
The one thing about social bookmarking is that it is very limiting if you are only promoting one site, no matter how you "mask" your bookmarks, eventually it will develop into a pattern of the same site over and over again. To avoid that you will spend more time bookmarking other sites than your own.

This is very time consuming and many people concentrate on the same sites...Digg, Stumble, Mixx, Reddit, Twitter...when there are literally hundreds of them.

I will be completely honest..if your goal is with social bookmarking sites is back links, and possibly even traffic, I highly suggest using software that will not only automate the process for you, but is designed to do it properly to avoid the spamming that bookmarking sites are set up to detect.

The one I use is Bookmarking Demon (http://bookmarkingdemon.com/). It's not free, it costs about $150, but it is well worth it to me.
If you read the directions, follow the instructions and don't get greedy with the back links, it is a very good tool....one of the best I have spent money on.

It doesn't promise riches beyond your wildest dreams, or thousands of uniques a day, but it gets the job done well, and steers you clear of being classified a self promoter or spammer.

I have multiple sites, so for me it is worth it and saves me a lot of time.

If you are working on one site for now, (or a buck fifty is not in the budget) I recommend keeping a ratio of at least 5 to 1 (or more) ....5 other bookmarks to every one of yours, and don't bookmark your site everyday on the same sites.

Don't bookmark every article that you write.
Make use of Yahoo answers, Yahoo Buzz, Facebook (you can update your facebook account with blog and website updates).
Spread the wealth around, don't use the same sites all the time.

Bookmark specific pages on your site, not the main web address IE: http: www . yoursite.com/ article, and not just www. yoursite.com, and do the same for other sites that you submit.

Remember, you can only bookmark the same site so many times before it is obvious that you are self promoting, so make this a small part of your overall program.

Also remember that bookmarking sites a frequented by people looking for the news, issue or tip of the day. They have short attention spans, and generally are not shopping. Some of the sites have more of a niche than others, so investigate which ones will work better for you....not all bookmarking sites are created equal.