Is social bookmarking worthwhile to market on-line business?

I have an online t-shirt business and am looking for some avenues to market. I've heard a lot of buzz about using social bookmarking, but wonder if its really worthwhile for me to use as a marketing tool. Does anyone have experience with this? How does it work? Which sites are good for my type of business if any?

Thanks!

 

Yes, social bookmarking and networks can work, if you know how to do it, and you don't put in more hours and get back less than a minimum-paid worker.

What kind of t-shirts?

 

My T-shirts are aimed at "Life Changes". They celebrate pregnancy, parenthood, retirement etc. I have never tried social bookmarking, so I do not how to go about doing it.

 

Yes social bookmarking is very effective.

You should also create a squidoo lens and pages on other similar sites.

 

A while back I did a Squidoo lens. I should update it. any ideas where I can post in addition to squidoo?

 

Yes, it can give you a ton of traffic. If I were you I would offer a contest for a FREE T-Shirt give-away, and this could really help you email database, and get traffic going to your site.

 

Great idea. Do you suggest a particular sight?

 

Ah, got ya.

I have some time to kill before lunch, so here is a little bit of advice from my e-book....

Don't go in there selling something. You want to come across as someone who genuinely wants to share good news. Make it polite, and short and sweet.

Example:

"Hello, everyone. My name is Heatherlhc. I wanted to share with you an awesome news piece I read about _______. I know there are plenty of parents here who may be interested, so enjoy. In the future I'd like to share more, so I hope I am allowed to. Have a great day!"

Well, you get the gest of it.

Pretend you are sharing stuff with your friends via e-mail. That way you will come across more natural, more genine.

Do NOT call anyone there "friends"!!! Spammers do that!

In all your submissions, put down your first name, which state you live in, your age, and...in your first few submissions leave out your url!

All of this will make you seem more genuine, and by giving your name and age, it will help you look more friendly, a person others can better connect to.

Example:

"Hey, wow, I'm 34 and I'm also from Indiana."

Doing this will also help you from being labeld as a spammer. It is real easy to get banned in many of the bookmarking sites. The spammers ruined it for everyone else.

DON'T SPAM! GENUINELY HELP PEOPLE! IN RETURN PEOPLE WILL GO TO YOUR SITE!

After, say, the third submission, put in your url along with your name, age and which state you live in, but, do NOT make it live! If they like your submissions well enough, they will copy and paste your url in their address window. If they don't like your submissions, well, it doesn't matter if your link is live or not.

Anything related to your site that you have seen on tv, read in a magazine or online, or what you have heard from others, share with others.

It can be just a real small submission too. Show others about this: http://www.prontocondoms.co.za/

Talk about it a little bit.

In all submissions, try to be a little humorous. Most people like a laid-back, humorous person. The more they like you, the better the odds of them going to your site.

You sould also write articles. Submit them to as many content sites as you can.

Don't forget the big sites, either: Yahoo, Google news, Reader's Digest, Associated Content, MSN.

You can also look into, GoArticles, iSnare, Helium, EzineArticles, WordPress, ArticleAvenue, SearchWarp, ArticleTrader and ArticleDashboard.

If you have the money, and if you haven't started already, get an advertising campaign going. The more places you advertise, the more money you will make.

You only need a few hundred bucks to get you going.

Start with search engines:

Google
MSN
Yahoo
Ask (AskJeeves)
AltaVista
MetaSpider
Vivisimo
PlanetSearch
SurfWax
qbSearch
ProFusion
Proteus
Go2Net
MegaGo.com
WebFile
MyGO
MegaCrawler
Jayde
Burf
Search-O-Rama
Cipinet
InfoTiger
G7K
TowerSearch
RealTech Miva
Chitika
VCM
LookSmart
NnSeek
iWon.com
Exactseek
Jayde
ScrubTheWeb
Search.com
MetaCrawler
Dogpile
Mamma
C4
Canada.com
Ixquick
Infogrid
Query Server
WebInfoSearch
800go
Debriefing
Highway 61
SearchAve
Aesop
GoTo
Mixcat
Abacho
Igwanna
SearchEngine
Find
Once Search-The-World
Beamed
SearchPixie
GoClick
Abcsearch
Pageseeker
Lycos Insite
SearchFeed
411Web
GenieKnows
Searchfeed
Search123
A9com
FreeEmail123
Amfibi
37.com
OneSeek
WebSquash

You Also Have Pay-Per-Click Services: TextLinkAds, TrafficSwarm, CasaleMedia.com, FastClick, BurstMedia, FC, TribalFusion, CJ, Azoogle, CPA Empire, GlobalInteractive, AdBrite, Adengage, RealMedia, Kontera, Avnads, ValueClick, Vibrant, RealTechNetwork, Dotomi….

Before submitting articles, first get them critiqued. Would they read them?

Before putting in your ads, first get them critiqued. Would they click on them?

Before ANYTHING, first get others to critique your site.

The following are the most popular bookmarking sites.

www.reddit.com
www.shoutwire.com
http://del.icio.us/
http://www.furl.net/
http://www.simpy.com/
http://www.backflip.com/
http://www.blinklist.com/
http://bluedot.us/
http://de.lirio.us/bookmarks/
http://www.diigo.com/user/
http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/
http://www.netvouz.com/
http://www.taggly.com/
http://.onlywire.com/
http://www.shadows.com/
http://www.markaboo.com/
http://ma.gnolia.com/
http://linkagogo.com/
http://netvouz.com/
http://www.mister-wong.de/
http://www.spurl.net/
http://www.rawsugar.com/
http://www.stumbleupon.com/
http://www.digg.com/
http://www.blogmarks.net/
http://www.lookmarks.com/
http://socialbookmarking.org/
http://newsvine.com/
http://fark.com
http://farked.com

One last thing. Do NOT offer free give aways in these sites. This may very well get you labeled as as spammer, and, possibly get your ass banned so fast, you won't know what hit you.

There is also such sites as squidoo lens, but you have to promote your page to get visitors. It acts sort of like your own site. So why try to promote two of the same things? It doesn't make sense to do this.

There's more, but it's lunch time!

Good luck!

 

Well, it seems that social bookmarking and networking sites are starting to be the go-to place. I mean, check out Obama, he hit up a bunch of networking sites to help him in his run.

But I'm sure you have to know what you are doing...

 

http://launchtags.com/
http://www.associatedcontent.com/
http://hubpages.com/
http://www.gather.com/
http://www.xomba.com/

 

Wow... Sounds like this is definitely a worthwhile avenue to pursue. Now, I jst have to sit down and write something!

Thanks for your help. Appreciate it!

 

Thanks Perry Rose for sharing with us your list.I will definetly use it

 

If you are getting in to social marketing of your products or services then one of the best ones to use is yuwie. Get paid for doing what you already do. Since part of Yuwie's revenue sharing involves you have referrals, naturally I'd like you to join under my link. Since I'm new here and want to make sure I'm not breaking any rules just email or send me a message and I'll send you my referral link. You are going to be link under someone in Yuwie, so it may as well be me

 

It's not guaranteed that it could help, but it's worth a shot to try it.