The success of your viral marketing efforts depends on how expertly you play your social graph to use as a medium though with to push your message. However, if your message finds no takers, it can hardly go viral, which counts on people indulging in some furious sharing, and no one shares bad content. So, it would be a good idea to remember that a successful round of viral marketing needs both good content and some decent social networking skills.

Here are some handy dandy tips that you can fallback on in your hour of viral marketing need. (I love puns, can you tell?)

1. Giveaways. Everyone loves free things. Free makes everyone happy. I could delve into the exhaustive scientific studies that attest to these statements, but really, there is no need for it. The giveaway model always works, it works off the Internet, it works equally well on it too. You can offer ebooks or Internet tools, or even sample mp3s if your music is what you wish to promote, and set the ball rolling. Just ensure what you give away is not sub-standard junk that you won’t use yourself. If people like the stuff, they’ll share, talk about it and generate interest in your business.

2. Videos. Create a really cool video about your business and upload it on YouTube and your site. You just need to take a look at the most popular viral marketing examples till-date to see the importance of this exhortation. Videos are very viral-friendly, so using them as a medium can almost guarantee you viral success. And it wouldn’t hurt if they are funny too.

3. Social Media. Work your Network. Today, it is fairly impossible to hope to market virally without using social media. That very fact has also made viral marketing far easier than it was before. Ensure you build a strong social network, then pass your message on to the social sphere through your connection. You can also use it as an avenue to enhance your other efforts too, share your YouTube video on Facebook or retweet a link on Twitter.

4. Visibility. Create a buzz. Then sustain it. The idea is to have people talking about your business. All the time. To constantly reside in their collective conscience. Memes are a great way to create viral buzz, the Armageddon meme started by the promoters of the movie 2012 was successful in generating so much viewer interest that it raked in over 500 million in profits no one was really surprised. If creating a meme is beyond you, write a post on a current topic, take a slightly controversial stance, then promote it on various social sites. That will sure get people talking.

When done the right way, most marketing efforts on social media has the potential to turn viral. What distinguishes a success from a failure, in most cases, is the initial momentum it manages to build. A slow build up doesn’t a viral campaign make. So, follow the tips mentioned above and learn to launch your viral marketing campaign right off the bat.

It is heartbreaking to see the number of blogs out there that have excellent content but can’t seem to succeed. They have rotten rankings and fail miserably. Don’t let same fate plague your blog, kick back and crack the Technorati 1000 by getting your house in order.

1. Make Your Blog Successful Or Die Trying: First thing to remember is to never give up, to keep on trucking, or rather writing, and remember that if the content is crap, no marketing effort will make it a success. No one starts a blog just for the hell of it, ensue that you have something to say. More publicity, promotion and, consequently, traffic will come your way, but only if the content is truly great. If you cannot write, get a writer to do it for you. There are loads for freelance sites online, where a blogger will write for you at a small cost.

2. Be An Expert: You know the old saying jack of all trades, master of none, become the master of your subject matter. Read and learn; write with intelligence and knowledge about your subject; with experience, your reputation will grow and people will seek you out. This will attract more comments in your blog, which can help you get cross promoted; always respond to your comments too, it is vitally important.

3. Be A Better Publisher: Publish full feeds particularly on controversial matters, this gets the attention of content scrapers which re-post your content and creates traffic. Use Feedburner too as this will allow you to find out how many people are subscribing to a particular feed.

4. First Impressions Always Count: Do you remember your mother telling you this? Well she was right and design matters. Set yourself apart from every other blogger with your design and be serious about it. If you cannot afford a professionally developed blog, then learn about photoeditors and CSS. You can also tweak your Wordpress theme, your blog, when done, has to scream out loud to people, READ ME AND LEAVE COMMENTS. A professional theme will get more readers to your blog.

5. Get Up-To-Date With SEO: Find out what makes it tick and what will make your blog tick too. Your blog needs to be tricked out with unique title tags, and keyword rich headlines to enjoy complete SEO wellness.

6. Be A Good Host: Host contests, polls and other interactive features to encourage even more participation in your blog. Make them fun or funny, controversial or challenging, but keep your readers interested. Your little corner of the blogging happy-hunting-ground needs to buzz with a life of its own. Make your blog successful, it will pay dividends.

Get your blog in order using these six tips, then set about promoting it using the prevalent internet marketing methods like social bookmarking and other means of social media,  and you’ll find your blog flooded with traffic in no time.

Last year saw Twitter and Facebook rise to dizzying heights of popularity and the web trying to wrap its collective head around the concept of real-time search and the resulting collaborations between Twitter and traditional search giants like Google and Bing. Yeah, social media really came of age in 2009. So, what changes will be wrought in social media this year? Social media gurus all over the Internet have been frantically making predictions, many have come out with extensive lists of just what changes it will undergo in 2010. Listed below are six likely social media forecasts for this year.

1. Social Media And Real Time Web – We already got a glimpse of the real-time web in 2009, with real-time search rolled out by major social media networks like Facebook and Twitter and the consequent deals with Bing and Google. This year we’ll see it come to its own, and social media will be the vehicle that will take it there. Besides being the agent of real-time search, which is already being incorporated into traditional search, social media will also prove to be a trend forecaster that will help spread as well as start trends and fads in matter of seconds.

2. Business of Social Media Marketing – Businesses were already turning hip to the powers of social media in the realm of marketing in 2009 (Dairy Queen, American fast-food chain and a local radio station WUKY are among the few who actively built their social media presence last year), and 2010 will reveal more and more businesses, including small busi­nesses, resorting to the aid of social media mar­ket­ing. According to industry experts, “Social media in 2010 will cease being the shiny new object and instead become part of the everyday lexicon of business.” And that it will no longer be considered a ‘fad’ used by youngsters and movie stars, but a marketing force to be reckoned with.

3. Social Media to Gain on Email – Even in 2009 with all the social media frenzy, email had reigned as the favorite form of online marketing, as difficult as it is to believe. But all that will change this year as the popularity of social media, social networks to be exact, is set to reach an unprecedented level and marketers will opt to capitalize on the multimedia elements and sharing options of social media.

4. Social Mobility – The popularity of smartphones has steadily increased over the past couple of years. With newer and smarter models available on the market, people, especially the young and the upwardly mobile (no pun intended), prefer to rely on them to conduct all their web-related activities, of which social media-based ones form a major chunk. 2010 will see a surge in the number of users who engage in social media activities through their phones; with the number of iPhone users to hit 1 billion within the year and 46% of all social media users already choosing to connect using their mobile devices, I have no trouble believing this forecast.

5. Corporate Social Media – Even while small business were actively adopting and incorporating social media into their marketing plans, the corporate world, save for a visionary few, remained vary of it. That will change this year, if it hasn’t already started changing, from aggressive marketing efforts to ingenious customer relationship management techniques, the corporate world is opening up to social media and is beginning to employ social media in all possible arenas. It’s all about building a ‘relatable’ profile on the various social media sites. They might not market their products or advertise openly in these profiles, but it will still be important to make their presence felt in the social media sites. This year will see corporate companies “leveraging social technology” and establishing their corporate ‘social’ identities, possibly helping them ‘humanize’ their corporate personas. About time.

6. The Women Of Social Media – Several reports in 2009 revealed that women were the undisputed rulers of social media, be it shopping sites, social networking sites, blogs or even micro blogging platforms (Twitter – 57%, Facebook – 57%, Flickr – 55%, Yelp – 57%), the female population seriously outnumbered the male population. Blogger moms are already recognized as a powerful web demographic and are expected to have more clout in the coming years. It is clear that women are growing to be the stronger sex on the web. This trend is expected to only grow stronger in 2010. The fact that more than 85% of all buying decisions of a household are made by a woman only goes on to reinforce the relevance and importance of this trend. Remains to be seen if this would result in potentially skewed, woman-centric social media that will pander women and women alone. Men, better watch out!

From where I stand, perched on the beginning of this year, this seems the most likely course that social media will adopt. Further down the road, new development may spring to alter its course; but right now, you can decide whether you want to ride the wave and benefit from the emerging social media phenomenon or be washed away by it. Be hip to what social media can offer you this year and make the best use of it.

To say that the question is at the forefront of the minds of several SEO mavens would be an understatement. The ever-rising popularity of various social media channels (read Facebook and Twitter) and the resultant flurry of activities (read real-time search) happening there have, evidently, been causes for concern for many in the search business (Google included). Many of them don’t just raise the question; they are convinced that there is no light at the end of the tunnel for SEO, and that the SEO-Armageddon is upon them!

SEO Vs. SMO: What They Say?

This undeclared war between search and social media has the grapevine rife with rumors – that Facebook is all set to vanquish Google, that Twitter is already beating the search engines at their own game, and here’s the whopper, real-time search on social media has all but replaced the traditional and ‘slow’ search engines!

Since I just don’t see the SEO-beast rolling over and playing dead (Google.com is the most visited site on the web), I am not holding my breath. A bunch of over-zealous early-adopters and a few million users thundering towards the latest social media sites may cause it to break out in sweat (by their own admission, Google had been a tad complacent, and hadn’t really anticipated the developments at Facebook and Twitter) but kill it? I don’t think so.

Yes, things may look a little worrisome, the as-yet-undisclosed search aspirations of Facebook, who is practically nipping at Google’s heels in the race for web domination (Facebook clocked 2.6 billion visitors in November, falling short of Google’s traffic volume by just 35 million) and the almost unanticipated success and as-yet-untapped potential of Twitter Search (which has seen a 477.25% increase in unique visitors in the last one year, as opposed to Google’s 11.77%) appear to paint a pretty bleak SEO-picture. But, can Facebook and Twitter push the behemoth Google out of the picture? Will they prove to be the fabled Google-killers? Let’s be real people, Google’s an old hand at search, no logic suggests that these search-wannabes can do what Microsoft and Yahoo together couldn’t achieve.

What Actually Is

Real-time search on Facebook

I am not alone in my opinion that all the hype surrounding real-time search is preventing us from seeing the ‘real’ picture. Real-time search, more than anything else, is based on ‘freshness’ of content. And unfortunately, in real-time search, freshness often precludes relevance. Therefore, the search feature that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter offer is based largely on the ‘age’ of the content and user preference, and seldom, if ever, relevance. Yes, I’d probably see my friends and zillion other Twitter or Facebook users talk about guacamole, but would I finally learn that it is actually a Mexican-dip and not a single-celled animal like I’d originally thought it was? Probably not.

My intention is not to dismiss all the virtues that real-time search may possess. I happen to agree with the experts, that when it comes to gauging user reaction and preferences, real-time search is a handy tool to have. But, for all its ability to make search ‘fresh’, real-time search is just far too vulnerable to spam.

Twitter Search is already plagued by spam issues; it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that the same fate can befall the other engines. If they can’t successfully weed out the spammy ‘noise’ and throw up clean ‘signals’, real-time search will barely outlive the hype it enjoys right now.

Relevance! Thereupon lies the secret to the continuing life of search engines, and therefore, of SEO. Search engines aren’t just gateways to the enormous amount of information available on the Internet, they are essentially watchdogs of quality on the net, they ensure that when someone uses search, only the most relevant and ‘clean’ content reaches them.

This reason alone will ensure that these users continue to use the traditional form of search, even if they dabble in some real-time search for kicks.
In light of all this, doesn’t the question of real-time search replacing traditional search appear rather irrelevant? Also, can you seriously imagine the Internet without Google?

The web has constantly evolved – from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, with the digerati now eagerly waiting for the third avatar – and with it, search has evolved as well. It is not amiss to suggest that what we have now is an evolving searchscape, and that the real-time search ‘threat’ posed by social media sites appears to have accelerated this round of its evolutionary process.

We’ll soon see real-time search factors integrated into the traditional search algorithms. The Bing-Twitter deal and Google’s move to show real-time content from Facebook and Myspace in search results are just an indication of how things will be. Twitter’s topic trending feature is unmatched by anything on the Internet today, and has its finger on the pulse of everything current. Search engines have already taken note of this and there is even talk that it could significantly impact ranking.

It’s safe to say that these developments will add more dimensions and depth to search. Search will be faster (it has no choice but be) and social graph metrics will find their way into the algorithm, if they haven’t already. Google has already rolled-out Social Search, that allows you to “find more relevant public content from your broader social circle” and they are all set to give their search engine a jolt of Caffeine and make it faster and better than ever before. Far from things dying, I see the birth of a new search era (and the search junkie in me rejoices).

What Will Finally Happen

An evolving, multifaceted searchscape, quite naturally, will necessitate a thorough SEO overhaul. Change in algorithms will certainly mean change in SEO practices as well. The current search scene, where social media has increasing relevance, demands that Social Media Optimization (SMO) have a bigger role than before in SEO (but not replace it entirely, as some fear). This is not really surprising, as it was understood, even before real-time search, that SEO and social media would lead a close existence – experts have always maintained that one could be used to better the other. The best results are achieved when SEO is done in conjunction with SMO – because, though social media may not be very helpful for building crawlable links, it helps build authority (oh, does it ever!), and with authority, SEO is as easy as pie, well almost.
Try building links using old-school methods like Directory Submission (because nothing works like the old-school methods, when it comes to building crawlable links) and increase and improve your social-media presence by engaging in social bookmarking and being active on social sites like Digg and Stumbleupon, and see if it doesn’t work wonders for your site!

Coming back to the original question, the doomsayers may be partially right after all, the end of SEO as we know it may be near, but you can rest assured that a newer, and more robust version is waiting to take the baton and run with it!

As mentioned in the previous post, the purpose of this post is twofold:

1) to show you how easy and simple it is to import sites from your Directory Maximizer account

2) also to show you how easily you can place orders by submitting sites or pages already added to you Social Maximizer account

Let’s first tackle the issue of ‘Importing’ sites.

If you are a Directory Maximizer user, you have the added advantage of importing your sites from your Directory Maximizer account and being on the shortest route to have your site bookmarked.

Once you’ve logged in to your account, click on the ‘Import Sites’ button. This will cause a page with the site listings to pop up.

Choose the sites you wish to import to Social Maximizer, then click on the import button. And voila! The sites are in your account and you are already halfway through with submitting them!

Now, on to ‘Submitting Existing Pages’.

To submit imported sites or site that have been already added to your account, click on the ‘Submit an Existing Page’ button.

Upon clicking the “Submit Existing Pages” button, you’ll be taken to a page that looks like the image below ( read on for detailed explanation):

Once in the Submit Existing Page’ section, follow the steps enumerated below.

Step 1. Choose/select the site you wish to submit.

Step 2. Then, choose the submission option of your preference.

a) Option 1: Have your site submitted to all the Bookmarking Sites our list, or if you have used Social Maximizer’s bookmarking service before, to the remaining unique sites.

b) Option 2: Have your site submitted according to your budget or to a specific number of sites. Either fill in the number of directories you want to have your site submitted to in the first box or the amount you are willing to spend towards the order in the second “Budget” field. There are two stipulations though: the order value cannot be less that $5, and a site has to be submitted to at least 20 bookmarking sites.

c) Option 3: Have your site submitted to bookmarking sites of your choice from the entire list. Once again, there are stipulations: the order value cannot be less that $5, and a site has to be submitted to at least 20 bookmarking sites. You have the option of saving the selected sites as a ‘Favorite’ and giving the list a unique name for future reference.

Note 1: Upon choosing any one of the three submission options, you will be shown details of your order. You will also be shown the amount approximately in your local currency.

Step 3. Then click on the confirm button, you’ll be taken to the payment page.

Payment Page

In the payment page, you’ll find the order details and the amount payable. You have two payment options available – you can either pay through PayPal or pay with your credit card.

As mentioned earlier, you additional payment options, if you have $MX in your account ($MX is a form of submission credit, $MX 1= $US 1) -

1) You can pay for the order solely with MX dollars.

Click on the ‘Complete Submission’ button to pay for the order with $MX .

The following screenshot shows that an order for 26 submissions is being placed with $MX 4.94 remaining in the person’s account.

2) You can apply an MX amount to your order and pay a reduced amount. The steps involved are enumerated in the example below.

Click on the ‘Use $MX in account’ button.

The screenshot shows the payment page of an order for 222 submissions; note that the amount payable is $42.18.

Clicking on the ‘Use $MX in account’ button causes a green ‘Apply & Recalculate Total’ button to appear.

In the space provided enter the $MX amount you wish to use towards the order, then click on the green button.

The screenshot shows that $MX of 5 is applied to the order and the total recalculated.

You’ll now notice a the change in amount payable, complete the payment process by clicking on either the ‘Pay by PayPal’ button or the ‘Pay by Credit Card’ button.

In the screenshot below, you’ll see that the amount payable is $37.18, after having used $MX5.

Ordering with Social Maximizer is as simple and easy as that! Click here to place a bookmarking order and enhance your social media marketing experience like never before.

Before you can avail of Social Maximizer’s bookmarking service, you need to, of course, sign up with us. But if you are a Directory Maximizer user, you don’t need to register anew at Social Maximizer – use the same login details and log in to your new Social Maximizer account.

Submitting a New Page

Once you are in your account, click on ‘Submit A New Page’. If you are a Directory Maximizer user and want to submit a site you’ve already added to your Directory Maximizer account, you have the option of ‘Importing Sites’; I shall explain how you can do that in the next post.

On clicking the “Submit a New Page” icon, you’ll be taken to a page that looks like this (read below the image for detailed explanation):

Once in the Submit New Page section, follow the steps enumerated below to successfully place a submission order.

Step 1. Enter the URL of the site or page you want to submit.

Note 1: If you are submitting a site that is optimized with Meta Tags, you can click on ‘Fetch site details’. All the relevant details will be fetched from the site in question and filled in automatically. Proceed directly to Step 4 in this case, if your site isn’t optimized with Tags, then continue to Step 2.

Step 2. Enter tags or keywords that will appropriately reveal the theme of or categorize the site/page you wish to submit. E.g. if you wish to submit a food blog, the tags could be ‘blog, ‘cooking’, recipes’ etc.

Step 3. Enter your titles and descriptions.

a) You have the option to enter up to 5 different titles and description. All the 5 variations will be given equal priority. In the example below, I’ve chosen to add 3 different titles and descriptions.

Now that you’ve successfully added the site details, proceed further to submit it.

Step 4. Choose the number of bookmarking sites you want to have your site submitted to. You have 3 different options available to you.

a) Option 1: Have your site submitted to all the bookmarking sites in our list, or if you have used Social Maximizer’s bookmarking service before, to the remaining unique sites.

b) Option 2: Have your site submitted according to your budget or to a specific number of sites. Either fill in the number of directories you want to have your site submitted to in the first box or the amount you are willing to spend towards the order in the second “Budget” field. There are two stipulations though: the order value cannot be less that $5, and a site has to be submitted to at least 20 bookmarking sites.

c) Option 3: Have your site submitted to bookmarking sites of your choice from the entire list. Once again, there are stipulations: the order value cannot be less that $5, and a site has to be submitted to at least 20 bookmarking sites. You have the option of saving the selected sites as a ‘Favorite’ and giving the list a unique name for future reference.

Note 2: Upon choosing any one of the three submission options, you will be shown details of your order. You will also be shown the amount approximately in your local currency.

Step 5. The Last & Final Step! Complete your ordering process by clicking on either of the payment options.

You have two additional payment options, if you have $MX in your account ($MX is a form of submission credit, $MX 1= $US 1):

1) You can pay for the order solely with MX dollars.

Click on the ‘Complete Submission’ button to pay for the order with $MX alone.

The following screenshot shows that an order for 26 bookmarking sites is being placed with $MX 4.94 remaining in the person’s account.

2) You can apply an MX amount to your order and pay a reduced amount. The steps involved are enumerated in the example below.

Click on the ‘Use $MX in account’ button.

The screenshot shows the payment page of an order for 80 submissions; note that the amount payable is $15.20.

Clicking on the ‘Use $MX in account’ button causes a green box to appear on the page. Click on the ‘Apply & Recalculate Total’ button

The screenshot shows that $MX of 5 is applied to the order and the total recalculated.

Note the change in amount payable and complete the payment process by clicking on either the ‘Pay by PayPal’ button or the ‘Pay by Credit Card’ button.

In the screenshot below, you’ll see that the amount payable is $10.20, after having used $MX5.

That’s how you place a social bookmarking order for a new page/site, one that hasn’t already been added to your Directory Maximizer or Social Maximizer account. Watch out for the next post, where I’ll show you how to import sites as well as submit existing sites.

All said & done Facebook is equal to oxygen for millions & millions of people (including me!) but do we know the journey it has gone through? Here are 10 Bizarre Facts about Facebook we ought to know…

1. More than 60 % of men and women have used Facebook to stalk their ex… & why not???

It’s like godsend for jilted ex-lovers who want to know each & everything their ex is doing after dumping them! Your ex will not know you’re following their every move & there’s no way you’ll get caught… perfect! No more public humiliation & so much information… ahem

2. ??? Pictures Uploaded Monthly on Facebook

I don’t know about other people but  whenever I attend a party or go for a holiday I take lots of pictures. This may seem normal but what you don’t know is that many of these photos are being taken only to post on Facebook. I also know that I am not the only one doing it. Of course there was a time when we use to click snaps for memories but hard core Facebook users like me will tell you that is no longer the case.

So we all keep posting all our photos on Facebook to share with our friends but have you ever stopped to wonder how many pictures are uploaded monthly??? The answer is 1 Billion!! That means 333,333,333 photos every day! No wonder the site keeps getting stuck so many times… I don’t blame you Facebook!

3. Active users

Lets take a look at the number of active members in Facebook over the years. In Dec 2004 there were 1 million active users in Facebook which grew to 5.5 million in 2005, 12 million in 2006, 50 million in 2007, 100 million in 2008 & has increased to 250 million as of July 2009!!! That is a growth of 250% in 5 years. Really man, Facebook IS making the world a smaller place.

4. More than 30 million users update their status at least once each day

This is not so much about Facebook but about how people lose their mind sometimes on Facebook. We all know that Facebook allows you to update your Status… but some people really take it to another level! I just couldn’t leave these gems out; you have to see for yourself…

o … can speak French in Russian..
o …’s charm is so contagious that a vaccine was created for it.
o … thinks that a day without sunshine is like night.
o … is a lover not a fighter, but he’s also a fighter so don’t get any ideas.
o … is so broke that she’s going to KFC to lick other peoples fingers.
o … feels ashamed of his smoking but it’s better that I smoke this and let the dreams of the cigarette workers come true then to be selfish & worry about my lungs.

5. 85%+ of all college students use FACEBOOK and 70% of them log in EVERYDAY

Facebook is a favorite for all age groups but it seems that young people, especially the college going crowd have played a major role in making Facebook what it is. 85% of college students have Facebook profiles & 60-70% of them login daily or at least one a week. I reckon the college authorities should start having Facebook as a subject, what say people!

6. Facebook Hates Breastfeeding Mothers!

This is weird but had to be mentioned…  Facebook apparently removes photos uploaded by mothers breastfeeding their babies; some accounts have even been deleted for this. Really Facebook?? I really don’t even want to know why!

7. Sorry Pal, We Don’t Like Your Name

Also, people with strange sounding names (e.g. Leboe’ or ‘Allien’) can have their FACEBOOK accounts deleted without any further explanation. These names could be genuine names & could mean anything in their local language! What can I say, all the Leboes & Alliens watch out for your Facebook account then!

8. It’s Addictive

Psychologists have introduced a diagnosis FAD (Facebook Addiction Disorder) as a new kind of addiction & I’m afraid I’m very close to it ? … actually, if you are reading this article I guess you are too!

9. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and owner of Facebook is the world’s youngest billionaire worth $1.5 billion & counting…you know what Mark you deserve it… for bringing Facebook into our lives! ?

10. A country that bans FACEBOOK!

Where? What? Why? These are the questions that come to your mind when you read the above statement right? Well, the country is Syria. It actually started as a precaution against some campaign which is said to promote false teachings about religion & war. However, some say that it was because of the government’s fear of people creating virtual societies & resulting in an uprising.

If I start collecting such crazy information about Facebook I’m afraid I’ll have to write an article like this every day for I don’t know how long. So I’ve decided not to go down that road … I’m happy just being a citizen of Facebook & expanding my world through it.

I’m sure that you had a great time reading about these amazing Facebook facts. It has been great having you read my post; I’ll try to get you more interesting articles like this in the future as well! Now let’s all get back to where we want to be most… Facebook, of course!!! Click here to share this link on your profile page in Facebook or you could even tweet this by clicking here!

Chandni Lepcha Panjwani

Social bookmarking can very simply be explained as a method where internet users can store, organize and manage their bookmarks (sites of their interest) on a public bookmarking site instead of their computers. Not only that, they can also share their bookmarks with their friends or a network of people. Social bookmarking makes the task of saving sites for future reference much easier and more accessible.

2. Advantages of Social Bookmarking

The main advantage of bookmarking a site is the Increase in Traffic. Social Bookmarking sites are used by millions of people around the world and by bookmarking your sites/your blog posts with them, you automatically get access to the large volume of traffic coming to these sites. All you need to do is have your pages bookmarked with the various Social Bookmarking sites and if the content is good then people will surely save and share it with others. As your bookmark is tagged by others or as more people vote, its popularity rises and it moves to the front pages of the category or site. This leads to an increase in traffic.

3. How does our Service work?

Please click here and check the ‘How It Works’ section to get a better idea.

4. What does a bookmark look like?

Here is a link to a page on the popular bookmarking site, Delicious, where you can view the bookmarks of a particular user: sample bookmarks on Delicious. Another type of site where people don’t necessarily save sites as bookmarks but share interesting stories, is Digg.com, a popular social news site. We submit to a combination of social bookmark and social news sites [difference between social bookmarking and social news sites].

5. Are these submissions made manually or through an automated process?

All the submissions are made manually by our highly-trained team of submitters. Prior to beginning the order, each site undergoes a review process. In this step our editors check the details of the submitted webpage to make sure they are free from any sort of errors and also write instructions for our submitters to follow while making the submissions to the Bookmarking sites.

6. How do I check where my site has been submitted, do I get a report?

Yes, you are provided with a detailed report on your submissions, which shows you the details of the submissions made along with a link of the final bookmarked url. You are also given an option to download this Report onto an Excel Spreadsheet.

To access this report, you’d need to:

• Login to your account
• Click on the ‘View Reports’ icon
• You’d then be taken to the section where you can view the reports of all the sites that you’ve submitted to till date
• Click on the webpage for which you’d like to view the report
• The details of the Social Bookmarks made for that webpage will be displayed below on the same page

7. Do you give an invoice for the order?

We give you an invoice for every order placed. You can view the invoices by clicking on the View Invoice icon in your account page.

8. How would I know if my bookmark has become popular?

The popularity of a bookmark is determined by the number of users that have bookmarked a link publicly. Next to each bookmark, you will see a number which shows how many people have saved it, shared it or voted for it. If the number is high then it indicates that the your web-page has become popular.

The numbers in the above image by the side of the Bookmarks, (148 & 220) indicate the popularity of the respective bookmarks, the latter being the more popular one!

9. Does it improve your rank with major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN ?

As your bookmark is shared & voted by more, the traffic to your site increases. As a consequence of the popularity, some people might decide to link to you therefore getting you links to your site, which can help with improving your rankings. You also get links from the bookmarking sites themselves. A few of these links can also help to some extent in improving your rankings.

10. What are titles and descriptions in Social Bookmarking and are they important?

Title/Headline:
Titles are of the utmost importance in Social Bookmarking because it determines whether the bookmark is going to be popular or not. The title is displayed as the headline of your listing, and has to be enticing enough to get the attention of the reader to make him want to read more. You need a title that is captivating enough to encourage people to click through to your site. Avoid the use of too much exclamation or something too promotional. A good title is one that will tell someone what your page is about and yet be interesting enough for them to want to read more.

Descriptions:
A description is a short, yet informative paragraph describing the contents of the page being submitted in brief. It should essentially generate interest and encourage people to click through to the site. Avoid excessive exclamations, promotional text or sales language in the description.

11. Why write more titles for my bookmarking submissions?

There are a couple of advantages to having more than a single title for your submissions.

1. Since it’s the title that ultimately becomes the headline of your listing, having variety can increase the chances of at least one of the titles working better than the others and resulting in more traffic.

2. The other perspective is from the SEO point of view, which comes into place for all those social bookmarking sites that give SEO-friendly links. By varying your titles and descriptions, you can target more keywords thereby getting more link diversity, and better rankings for those terms. We allow you the option of entering up to 5 titles and descriptions, which we will then submit in equal proportions.

12. What are Tags / Keywords?

A tag is a descriptive word used to categorize your post. The biggest advantage of Tags are, unlike categories, which are limited to a certain number, you can make up and post as many Tags that you think are appropriate to your web page. Tags are helpful to other users when exploring your public bookmarks.

Ex: you can associate all your fitness related bookmarks with the tag “fitness”, “health”, “gym”, so on and so forth. If any of your friends want more information on this topic, they can simply come to your bookmarks and check out all the sites under these tags.

13. What pages of my site can be promoted?

You can submit any page of your site or blog when it comes to Social Bookmarking, web pages which have newsworthy, interesting content are likely to work. In fact, that is the specialty of Social Bookmarking. You could just bookmark a particular article or story on your site. It isn’t necessary to submit your whole site.

14. Do I need to register with Social Bookmarking sites?

No, you needn’t worry about spending your precious time in going to each of the Social Bookmarking sites and registering with them. All you need to do is add your web-page that you’d like to promote through our service, and we will do the rest. We have our own accounts at Social Maximizer, which we will be using for the submissions.

15. Do I need to set up a blog first?

No, social bookmarking is not only for blogs. You can submit any web page from your site or blog for bookmarking. In fact, you can even submit a particular article from your site. We recommend submitting the page which is most interesting & has most information. Submit the page which will help you most in customer conversion.

16. How long will the order take to be completed?

The submissions should be completed within 7-9 working days from the date of the order. We can also handle orders on a quicker turnaround basis, if required.

17. How do I change my URL if I have entered it incorrectly?

You cannot change the URL from the Edit Site section. Please send us a mail about this issue and we will see what can be done.

18. Can u remove the links already submitted?

We cannot change, delete or edit the links that already been submitted to the social bookmarking sites.

19. Tips to make your article popular in Social Bookmarking sites.

Please click here to get tips on making your article popular on Social Bookmarking sites.

20. How do I make a payment?

Once you’ve selected your submission options and are ready to pay for your order, you can choose from either of the two available options, PayPal or 2Checkout.

• On clicking the PayPal button, you will be taken onto the secure servers of PayPal.If you have a PayPal account, login to it with your email address and password, review your order and click the “Pay Now” button to complete the payment.If you don’t have a PayPal account or have never used PayPal before, click on the “Continue” link as seen in the picture below:
  On clicking this “Continue” link, you’ll be taken to a page where you’ll be required to fill in your Credit Card details along with other important information and then proceed to complete your payment.

  After the payment has been made, you will be brought back to Social Maximizer where you would receive a ‘Transaction Complete’ message.

• On clicking the ‘Pay by Credit Card’ button, you will be taken onto the secure servers of 2Checkout.com, our authorized vendor for payments by credit card. Out there, you’d need to review your order details & enter your billing and credit card information, once done, click on the ‘Checkout’ button and complete the payment. You will then be brought back to Social Maximizer, where you will receive a ‘Transaction Complete’ message.

21. What are your payment methods?

We accept payments through PayPal and 2CheckOut. 

22. Are my Payment details stored by you?

We do not process payments directly from our site. All payments are processed on the secure servers of PayPal and 2Checkout respectively and not on our site. The minute you click on either of the payment buttons, you’re taken onto the respective payment gateway’s secure servers and brought back to our site only once you’ve completed all the payment formalities. As such, we do not even have access to your payment details, leave alone storing it.

23. How secure is your payment process?

All payments are processed on the secure servers of PayPal and 2Checkout respectively and not on our site. The minute you click on either of the payment buttons, you’re taken onto the respective payment gateway’s secure servers and brought back to our site only once you’ve completed all the payment formalities.

24. Is it a one-time payment or recurring payment?

All payments you make are one-time non-recurring payments.

25. How is a Social Bookmarking site different from a Social News site?

Please click here to read about the differences.

26. How is Social Bookmarking related to SEO?

The common objective between the two is to increase traffic to your site/blog.

• On submitting your webpages to the Social Bookmarking Sites, you can expect to have people viewing and visiting your bookmark. As your bookmark becomes more popular and rises to the front pages of the category or the site, it would not only lead to more traffic but also create an opportunity where others might directly link to you from their sites.  More links = better rankings!
• Some social bookmarking sites link out with search engine friendly links. You could use this opportunity to target various key terms in your titles and get great diversity in your backlink profile.
• Get deep links to inner pages of your site.

28. How can I select a list of favorites?

Let me tell you how you can select a list of your favorite bookmarking sites:

• To create a list of favorites on Social Maximizer, you need to first go to your Submit Site page and select the site you want to place an order for.
• You will then see the three submission options below.
• Click on the third option.
• All the bookmarking sites we have in our list will appear below.
• You need to choose at least 20 favorites. You will see a small link on the right hand side saying ‘Show PageRank Information. Please click on that link to have this information displayed
• After selecting your favorites, you need to name the list and save it for future use. This section will appear below the list
• You can then proceed with the order as usual.

27. Can I submit foreign language sites?

I’m sorry but we do not accept foreign language sites for social bookmarking.

28. Can I submit Gambling sites?

I’m sorry but we do not accept Gambling sites for social bookmarking.

29. Can I submit Adult  sites?

We do not accept Adult sites for social bookmarking.

Photography is also one of Richard’s interests, so when not at work he’s also reading up on the latest lens in the market, apart from different photographic techniques, participating in several activity forums, to mention a few. With the desire to share these sites with his like-minded friends in the future, he saves these bookmarks as well on his browser.

With his findings running into hundreds in a few months time, Richard is beginning to realize the need for a more efficient system as with time, it’s only becoming increasingly difficult for him to locate his bookmarks. This apart, every time he steps out of home, he doesn’t have access to his system, so just in case he’s forgotten to email the researched information to his students, sharing his findings becomes an issue.

On one such day, that he’s forgotten to email his previous evenings findings, he discusses this issue with his class. At that time, Andrew tells Professor Richard about this site called Del.icio.us, which he uses to manage his bookmarks of gaming sites. Whenever Andrew finds a great gaming website that he’d like to bookmark, he just clicks on the “Tag” button on his browser to add it to his Del.icio.us account and enters a few relevant keywords that can help him find this bookmark at a future date. Not only this, since his list is public, he also directs his friends and college mates to it, which they can then find through keywords. Del.icio.us being online, also means that Andrew’s bookmarks aren’t just restricted to a single system.

On listening to this information Professor Richard’s heaves a sigh of relief, for he knows that this is exactly what he’s been looking for. He goes back home and spends the next few weeks reorganizing his bookmarks taking them online to Del.icio.us for his respective groups.

As you have understood we are talking about Social bookmarking. To summarize, Social bookmarking can very briefly be explained as a method where users of the World Wide Web save, organize, search, manage and share bookmarks of pages on the Internet with the help of tags or in simpler terms, keywords.

www.SocialMaximizer.com

This new phenomenon we are talking about is called ‘Social Bookmarking’ & it has taken the web by storm.

Social bookmarking can very simply be explained as a method where Internet users store their favorite pages on these “bookmark” sites online. Users also have the option of sharing these pages with their network of friends.

In other words, you store your favorite websites or web pages as ‘bookmarks’ or ‘favorites’ on Social Bookmarking sites online instead of your desktop computers or laptops, making them accessible anywhere you go. With Social Bookmarking you can store, organize and manage your bookmarked sites for social viewing and also browse through others’ bookmarks and add them to your list of bookmarks. Not only that you can also share your bookmarks with your friends or a network of people. Gone are the days when you needed to call or email your friends to tell them about your favorite sites, we have moved to better times now!

Here is a video to show you how social bookmarking works. In this video, delicious has been used as an example of a social bookmarking site. I’m sure that all your doubts about social bookmarking will be cleared after you see this video.

Social bookmarking has given people a huge opportunity to show off & share their ‘favorites’ with the world. You don’t have to go through a long process to share it with your friends & you can access the list anytime from anywhere.

So now that you know all about social bookmarking you can immediately start bookmarking your favorite sites & articles. I’m sure the 1st bookmark will be for this article right?

www.SocialMaximizer.com