Value of social bookmarking buttons?

[Mike Lewis]

More and more websites these days seem to have sprouted those "submit to" or "share" buttons, where you can click on a button or link to automatically submit the page to Delicious, DiggIt, StumbleUp, and the like.

How useful are these buttons?

I can see how a top news story, or an article of burning public interest, could easily make it to the front page of the social bookmark sites. But that can only apply to a handful of pages.

The vast majority would surely end up buried deep in the listings. So, is there any value in that, given that the only way your potential visitors would find your page is to do a search? And why would anyone search Delicious, etc. when they've got "real" search engines like Google.

I was thinking of putting some social bookmarking buttons on a site that I maintain, but I thought I'd get your views before going ahead with it.

Mike


__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro tips, advice, training, consultancy
Custom software for your business

 

[spamjim]

By getting a person to share a link to your site on their own social homepage/wall, they are advertising your site to their entire network of friends (and making a more human recommendation for content that Google cannot possibly do). Your friends know you (and your interests) better than Google.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Thanks for your reply, Spamjim.

So, you are saying that the folk who use these social sites tend to belong to networks, and find sites by looking for pages of interest to the other people in the network (who presumably have the same interests, etc.)?

And that they might do that in preference to using Google, etc?

That's very useful to know. I have never used these social or networking sites myself, and didn't realise they worked like that.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro tips, advice, training, consultancy
Custom software for your business

 

[spamjim]

Think of a social site like Twitter or Facebook as an RSS feed created by your friends & family. While one might search for other like-minded people through social networking, your friends and family are your primary social network and may be your primary content source. One does not often use a social network to find something. It is more of a passive experience... like targeted advertising. No one is looking for anything in particular but everyone can lead everyone else to something they like.

Uncle Larry likes racing so he might post something about NASCAR that displays on your wall. Your mother might be a crazed supporter of some politician and posts political nonsense throughout the day.

 

[Mike Lewis]

That's much clearer now, Spamjim. I suppose what I should have done is to join some of these networks myself, to get some idea about how they operate. But your explanation is very helpful.

It certainly sounds like it could be worth the (very small) effort needed to create the bookmarking icons.

Thanks again.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro tips, advice, training, consultancy
Custom software for your business