The Top 5 Social Bookmarking Sites

In last week's post, I introduced you to the concept of social bookmarking—how valuable it can be for collecting content to share with your audience (and build thought leadership), and the ways it can be used to promote your own content.

So, which social bookmarking sites should you be using?

In today’s post, I’m going to discuss my top five favorite social bookmarking sites. You’ll learn all about how these platforms work, who the majority of their users are, and which social bookmarking sites are best suited for your marketing objectives.

Table of contents:

• Pinterest
• Delicious
• Reddit
• StumbleUpon
• Scoop.it
  

1) Pinterest

Launched in 2010 and now with 70 million users, Pinterest has made quite a splash in the social media and social bookmarking world. Pinterest is an image sharing site that allows users to create and label theme-based image collections called “boards.” Users can “pin” original content to their boards or repin other users’ content.

Pinterest is a great platform to choose if you have a lot of visual content, or if you include interesting and high quality images in your blog posts. If you use infographics regularly in your blog posts or other marketing efforts, posting those on Pinterest can help generate a lot of traffic to your website. Pinterest is also a go-to site if you're targeting young women.

The Knoxville Chamber of Commerce does a great job of using Pinterest to promote their own content, as well as the content of local businesses.

2) Delicious

Delicious (formerly Del.icio.us) is considered the original tagging and social bookmarking site. Started in 2003, Delicious allows users to group their content in “stacks,” which can be created on your own or with other contributors. Even if you decide not to allow other people to contribute to your stacks, users can still suggest links that you might want to include in your stacks.

If you’re looking to collaborate with other like-minded individuals and organizations, Delicious is the site for you. While many of the other social bookmarking sites allow users to contribute to each others’ content, Delicious has a reputation for offering the best collaboration resources.

The JCC of Dallas synced their Delicious account with Twitter, so every link they tweet is also shared on their Delicious account!

3) Reddit

Reddit, founded in 2004, has a format that is quite different from many of the other social bookmarking sites. While most social bookmarking sites feature visuals and clean layouts, Reddit’s layout is very text-heavy. Reddit users can submit links, rate content by voting up or down, comment on links and "friend" one another. Stories that receive the most “up votes” rise to the top of the page, while less popular stories sink to the bottom.

Reddit has a reputation for providing off-beat news and unique content, so it's a great choice if you need to add some spice to your collection of mainstream content.

If you visit the site and become totally overwhelmed, check out this video, which explains Reddit in the simplest of terms:

4) StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon, launched in 2001, has positioned itself as a “discovery and recommendation engine” rather than strictly a bookmarking tool. Like most social bookmarking tools, StumbleUpon will ask for your interests and then select content based on those topics. But instead of scrolling through lists of links, you can click the "Stumble" button, and StumbleUpon will send you directly to a webpage that's relevant to one of your interests. Once you land on a page, you can vote to “Like” or “Dislike” the content, and StumbleUpon will take your vote into consideration when choosing future content.

StumbleUpon helps people discover content that they probably wouldn’t have found while using another social bookmarking platform. StumbleUpon allows for a more creative, free-flowing type of content curation. If you need to do some brainstorming or open up your mind to new ideas, give StumbleUpon a try.

5) Scoop.it

Scoop.it arrived later in the game (it launched in 2011), and it seems like the developers were able to take the best features of existing social bookmarking sites and create a really functional and easy platform.

Similar to Pinterest, Scoop.it allows users to “scoop” content and categorize it into different “topics.” Users can assign certain keywords to their “topics,” and Scoop.it will generate related content based on those keywords (similar to the way StumbleUpon functions). Scoop.it also allows for interaction with other users through commenting and following.

Scoop.it is my favorite social bookmarking tool. It has a clean, well-organized interface. It’s a great tool for anyone looking to collect high quality written content while still enjoying strong, appealing visuals.

Check out how the Alberta Real Estate Association uses Scoop.it to curate relevant content.

Out of these five social bookmarking platforms, which ones work best for you and your organization?

Choosing the right platform depends largely on your marketing goals and the way in which you prefer to receive your information. Are you a more visual person, or do you prefer text-heavy sites? Do you like having relevant content suggested for you, or do you prefer to roll up your sleeves and do a little digging?

Remember, you don’t have to pick just one. Utilizing several social bookmarking sites will increase the chances of getting your content found and expose your organization to a wider variety of viewers and potential relationships.

Happy social bookmarking!

Source: Social Bookmarking And Social News Tools

Here are some other articles you might enjoy reading:

Intro to Social Media for Nonprofits

5 Ways Social Bookmarking Will Make Your Job Easier

6 Ways To Boost Your Social Media Strategy in 2013