When to Bookmark and When NOT to Bookmark
Continuing on from my bookmarking post a few weeks ago...
When do you bookmark and when do you NOT bookmark? Well, this is a question many bloggers usually face. Do you add your own content to sites like StumbleUpon and Digg in order to receive some instant, artificial traffic, or do you avoid submitting your own work for various reasons? There is reasoning to either side of the story.
There are quite a few negatives. The first being, your accounts on these sites may get tagged for spamming, as well as get your blog automatically banned from being submitted on these sites. Your content appears better to those very strict Stumblers who carefully examine your posts, submitters, and votes given to determine if you are abusing the site. A possible outcome for abusing this is a permanent ban from the site itself. Definitely not good. :(
Your content will also do better. If you aren’t the one submitting it, that means somebody else actually liked it enough to submit it. It’s obviously of some good quality. It’s more likely to be popular even if you haven't gotten your first +1 feedback. It’s a great benefit to let others submit articles of their own.
However, remember that there are positives that you can get out of submitting your own unique and special content. Obviously, if your site needs RSS Subscribers when you submit your own content, then you will have a free and somewhat targeted traffic coming to your site (depending upon which social bookmarking site). Having 300+ visitors to your site increases the chances of having somebody subscribe to your RSS feed. While it is a long shot, if you use the right tags, over time you may manage to snag a few.
Adding content to certain sites also puts your link in the user's feed, giving you a link back to your own site. I’ve found backlinks from www.username.stumbleupon.com before. Even though it may not be much, it’s a free and easy backlink! This can be extremely helpful for certain bloggers.
Last but not least, there is the traffic factor. To some, it may just be the desired encouragement. Nobody wants to blog to a blank audience (as I have stated before). If there is nobody to read your content then you may get discouraged. Adding content to these social bookmarking sites gets you some traffic, and maybe some feedback even if it is positive or negative. It doesn't matter, as long as it is traffic and feedback! It can help clarify exactly what you are doing well and what you should plan to do, as well as what you may want to change. The users of the bookmarking sites can get very harsh at times with their constructive criticism, so make sure you are willing to receive it. Don't start arguments, fights, etc. It will only make your blog look worse.
To bookmark, or not, it's up to you.
-Aud
