Beyond The Big Digg April 1, 2009
Using Niche Social Bookmarking Sites Instead of Digg
Digg is the big name that everyone thinks of when they think of social bookmarking. If you want to get attention to your website from people who are interested in your industry then, it’s a good idea to do the legwork to get listed on the front page of Digg. However, getting listed on that front page can be difficult. And with Digg’s credibility constantly in flux, just getting listed on Digg may not necessarily translate into the kind of traffic that you’re really hoping to drive your way with the use of social bookmarking sites. It might be better for you to widen your focus beyond Digg and to start getting active instead on the niche social bookmarking sites that are most relevant to your industry.
The thing about niche social bookmarking is that it focuses on very specific areas of web writing. For example, there are social bookmarking websites for people to share their work in the areas of green living, personal finance, photography, web design and even parenting. What this means is that everyone on the site is actually interested in that topic. On big sites like Digg, you’ve got followers who aren’t necessarily interested in everything on the site which means that they may vote you up or down because they are a fan of yours on the site but they don’t actually come to check out your posts. This means that your work on the site is a waste of time. That’s not the case on niche social bookmarking sites because the people on those sites are truly interested in the topic about which you are writing.
The other thing that’s different about niche social bookmarking sites is that they combine social bookmarking (the whole process of sharing and voting on each other’s articles) with some great features from social networking (the conversations and communication that exist between people online on sites such as Facebook and Twitter). With niche social bookmarking sites, you can really start to network with people because the sites are smaller and conversations on the sites can be more involved and intimate. This means that you develop true friendships on these sites. This makes using them more enjoyable and it also means that you gain true fans for your work, people who will really support you and promote your writing on and off the social bookmarking site. Although this can happen on Digg, it’s much easier to achieve on the smaller social bookmarking sites.
What you’ll want to do then, it to start figuring out which sites are right for you to be on to do this kind of social bookmarking work. Write down a list of all of the topics that you cover on your blog. Then start the search for social bookmarking sites unique to that niche. For example, if you write about money and personal finance then check out a site like Tip’d. If you write about shopping, check out a site like iliketotallyloveit. Then you can be an active contributor and member on those sites. Build up your community there and you’ll build up your traffic on your own website.
[...] is a great tool for driving web traffic to a site, I tend to prefer to focus my efforts on smaller niche social bookmarking sites. These sites are easier to gain a following through and that following tends to be more [...]