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Social Networking vs. Social Bookmarking

You are certainly already aware of the fact that you need to use social promotion to generate a buzz about your business. It is important that you understand that there are two different major types of social promotion and that you should be making use of both of them. The first is social networking which refers to sites through which you make and maintain contacts with others online. The second is social bookmarking through which you promote the blog posts and online articles that interest you most. Although there is some overlap between the two, these are two distinct online activities that both need your attention.

Social networking is the type of online social promotion that most people are familiar with. This is what you are doing any time that you connect with people online through a site like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. You create a profile on these sites that tells people about you. You can then converse with people on the site through status updates, instant messaging, in-site emails, etc. This is a way to build more solid connections with the people that you know online. It is also a way to find others online who share your interests and to let them know about the work that you’re doing.

Social bookmarking is more about promoting specific blog posts and articles. This is the activity that you are engaged in when you submit an article to a site like Digg, Mixx or StumbleUpon. These are the sites that you do voting on; posts with the most votes become the popular posts around the web. You do create a profile on these sites as well but the profile tends to be briefer than on social networking sites. You can also converse on these sites but the main purpose of the site is to draw attention to specific blog posts.  These may be your own blog posts or the posts of others with whom you are acquainted.

The reason that you need to be engaged in both of these activities is because they take different approaches to spreading the word about the work that you’re doing. Social networking allows you to really flesh out your online personality so that others can feel connected to you. This makes them more inclined to work with you. Social bookmarking serves the purpose of drawing web attention to your site which helps increase the visibility of your online presence. Both activities have the potential to serve the purposes of one another but it is only by using both services that you truly maximize your potential with social promotion.

This article brought to you by the SEO experts at Real Deal Technologies.