Social Bookmarking

A quiet evolution of the Internet has been going on for quite a few years. It has now become more visible and has taken on a the name of Web 2. 0. This refers to the fact that people are taking control of how they exchange information, search for information, and exchange information through social bookmarking. The manipulation of data and information is no longer being controlled through a structured language.

In social bookmarking users share their personal list of online resources (bookmarks or favorites), that they find valuable. Besides the Internet address of the website additional information can also be added, such as comments or define category that a website falls in with the use of keywords which are often called tags.

These lists are meant to be shared with everyone. One can even limit the access to the bookmarks by making them private. Users can search the lists by categories, tags or users. Additionally, it is easy to keep track of the users that have identified a website as their favorite. This ensures that most popular website gets prominent display usually on the front page of the website.

The social networking sites recognized early on that once marketing efforts moved to this medium there would need to be some type of regulation of tagging to keep spamming and hacking to a minimum. The sites continue to work on improving their security levels so that advertisers and marketers cannot create false audiences for their websites and products.

A website owner considering using social networking as a marketing tool will need to create a steady and consistent flow of quality information that a wide audience will be interested in reading. In addition, it is important to remember that spam advertisers are quickly blocked from a person's bookmarks and when the URL has been blocked by a customer on one device, it is blocked from all of that customer's devices.

In order to use social bookmarking as a business tool, you need to be sure that you abide by the rules and ettiquette of the individual social network sites.  Use these sites only for their intended purpose.  In the long run, that will improve your reputation with your target market.