[creative_master]

When approaching the subject of social bookmarks, (aka website chicklets), think about your strategy. I know it might seem easy enough to just place a ’share this’ or ‘add this’ widget to your website, but you need to consider the ‘little’ things about these valuable marketing assets.

I am not going to dive into the definition of what these devices are (as you should be aware) - you have seen these on hundreds of thousands of websites. These social bookmarks, also referred to as website chicklets, offer the ability to share content easily through social content network websites, such as Facebook, Digg, Delicious, Google, Windows Live, Yahoo Buzz, Stumbleupon, Twitter, Fark, Magnolia and many others.

These sites might seem silly at first, but if your a fellow blogger or social media enthusiasts; you know how valuable this social media strategy is for you. These websites allow access to an audience of hundreds of millions of people who converse inside these channels daily. I don’t know if I need to go into numbers, but why not…let’s do it.

During the time frame of December 2007 through December 2008, the following are the number of unique visitors to each respective social community network website: (Remember these are unique visitors to the website - NOT overall traffic for the year)

* Google Bookmarks: 140 million people
* Yahoo! Buzz: 134 million people
* Windows Live: 88 million people
* Facebook: 60 million people
* Digg: 33.5 million people
* Twitter: 4.4 million people
* Stumbleupon: 4.2 million people
* Delicious: 1.8 million people
* Fark: 451,000 people
* Mag.nolia.com: 90,000 people
(**numbers courtesy of Quantcast)

I think you see my point - these networks are growing on an exponential level. To think of the daily traffic numbers these websites receive every single day - it could make you shiver. Google Bookmarks alone probably sees close to 100 million visitors a day, if not more. And the numbers given above are just unique visitors to the website. Do you know how many more hundreds of millions of people come back daily to take part in what these websites offer?

These social networking channels are key components in driving not only traffic, but linkage to your website. Placing your website into these networks allows you to drive thousands of unique visitors based upon submission of your content through the social bookmark channels.

Sites.

Blogs, News sites, content networks, article banks, products of any kind online, almost anything with original content tied to it is attached to a social bookmarking tool. Some of the best and worst examples come with news websites.

The New York Times are one of those examples of great placement and overall use of website chicklet attachment. Placing this option on EVERY story on the website, as the NYT does - allows them to gain great traction on linkage and enhance their overall presence on the social network community websites.

An example of a misguided attempt at using website chicklets would be on Boston.com. I look at their placement and say OK, that is fine - but their call-outs are poorly designed, as this example blends in too much with the story overall. It is best to create a completely separate call-out-box, such as the NY Post and Philly.com does in their examples. Otherwise, look at the New York Times (above) and see how they separate it off strategically to the right side of the story - not in line with the copy. This is wonderful placement!

You need to think, when a reader is about to take hold of a story, they look at the picture and title initially, and then start reading down, looking for their CONTENT first, not a social bookmark chicklet they can pass to their friends. They have not even read the first couple paragraphs of the story yet. You have to allow the reader to get comfortable with the material before having them pass the story along to their chosen social network or email it to a friend option. In the Boston.com example, you don’t see any particular call-outs; you only see a ’share this’ application that does little for a user who is unfamiliar with the chicklet. In the NYT example, you see separate icons (calls-to-action) for Linked In, Facebook, Digg, and then you see a button to press for more options - much more effective! Do you see my point?

Conclusion.

Whether your a website that offers products or content of ANY kind - consider using these social bookmarks to help grow your traffic. These websites offer the ability for people to easily ’share’ your content, as well as create a number of outbound links for your website. You might have a blog, or other types of content, a viral product, videos, pictures, etc…whatever it might be - you can attach these chicklets to your overall marketing strategy and allow users to push your content into these social community content websites.

Try it - and just see what happens!

Fin.