Earlier this week, I had an interesting phone call with the marketing person from a game portal. He had called to avail himself of my “one hour free” offer. He primarily wanted to talk about the potential of social bookmarking — such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Kirtsy, Mixx and Reddit — as a marketing tactic.
I suspect he was disappointed in the call. Unlike an analyst, I don’t have great pronouncements about trends. What I do is discuss your business issues and make concrete suggestions for your marketing and social media plans. There is no single answer, just avenues for exploration.
Here’s what you should look at regarding social bookmarking.
Social bookmarking as a tactic is a bit like Google Ads. Easy to do but hard to do well. To be successful with Google Ads, you need to look at your stats every day. Adjust keywords. Tweak content.
Social bookmarking is the same.You need to look at your web analytics, understand what the social bookmark sites deliver to your site and be willing to tweak your content to be appealing to the ones delivering real traffic, real prospects.
Black hat tactics like paying for submissions are a non-starter. They may deliver traffic — until you are caught — but the traffic won’t convert. They won’t buy, they won’t come back.
And that’s what you are looking for. Buyers and loyal visitors.
Unlike Google Ads, though, you can get some benefit dabbling in social bookmarking. If you aren’t willing to invest the time to understand which of the social bookmarking sites are productive for you, you can still get some incidental benefit by placing the links or a widget like Share This on your site. Or by occasionally pinging your friends to Digg a post. No real investment, no expectation, no worries.
If you want to spend the time though, here’s my suggestion.
First, look at your referrers. Which social bookmarking sites are delivering the most traffic, and the most productive traffic, to your site? It is bound to be different depending on what you write, what you offer. Every social bookmarking site has a user base and possibly even a perspective. You need to understand which ones are important to you, to your customers.
Then look at the type of content that attracts these visitors. If it is consistent over time — the same type of content attracts the visitors from a desired social bookmarking site, you have guidance for what to write to attract them in future. It’s not that different from the process used in television ratings. The networks tailor their content to the most productive audience.
It’s simple marketing math.