Social bookmarking has become very popular and for good reason. There is a clear purpose for using social bookmarking in both your business and your personal life. Thanks to sites like digg, delicious and stumbleupon, you can now have all the sites that are of interest to you at your fingertips, regardless of where in the world you are and what computer you are using. You are now able to share your findings with others and even get backlinks when they comment on your content.
Despite the fact that social bookmarking is gaining popularity, it is frequently being used in the wrong way. All too often, people will bookmark their own sales pages, in the hopes of increasing page rank. After all, each bookmark represents a link back to your page. They forget that other users of the site are not interested in sales pages. They are looking for useful content, just like you where it does not involve your own site(s).
I can hear you say “why use social bookmarking sites, if I cannot promote my sales page with it?”. The answer is simple. The right way to use social bookmarking sites is to promote the good content that you are spreading around related to your niche. This way your readers will be very pleased with your link and they will come back for more. Now you are creating a loyal following who will want to read everything you have to say. If you also point out other peoples content to them, they will be even more eager to stay up to date with your postings. Now you have effectively differentiated between those that are only after free products and those who are genuinly interested in all there is on the topic. Those are the people you will want to get into your sales funnel.
Do you see the difference? You use social bookmarking sites (among other tools) to draw peoples attention to valuable content. They will be so impressed with the content you provide that they will start asking questions. This is the time to introduce them to the sales funnel. Now you know that this person is genuinly interested in what you do and they will be eager to buy from you. You are only letting people into your sales funnel that are serious prospects and not just freebie seekers. Even though you are not selling through social bookmarking, you will be able to get extremely qualified sales leads and customers that will be interested in everything you do. You have their trust!
