Social Bookmarking Icons

Social BookmarkingProblogger Darren Rowse recently wrote a post about having those social bookmarking icons at the bottom of every blog post, and if they are worthwhile. He was referring to another post by 37 signals, which advocates quality content.

But really, social bookmarking is a crazy thing now on the Internet. You have Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us, Furl, Newsvine… I won’t even bother to name more… there is even one page on Digg right now, talking about submitting your page to 50 social bookmarking sites.

Do I find those little icons useful? For me, yes, I’m a lazy blogger remember? Well, I like these cute little icons at the bottom because they help me do my stuff a little faster. When I like an article I read, this is a good and easy way to recommend it to the world. Also, they spice up the page a little.

What about Traffic?

I have added my own icons a while ago (I used the WP-Notable plugin, if you’d like to know), hoping to help others who visit my site.

But if you’d ask me if they helped me bring in traffic – I’d say, not really. I think eventually, like what Matt on Signal vs. Noise said, it really boils down to the content. You can submit your article to a million of bookmarking sites out there, but nobody is going to vote for you if your article is just full of crap.

I know my content is not viral enough… yet! :mrgreen: I’m learning everyday to improve on that!

People want quality content. Period. And, search engines want what people want… well, at least in their vision. :mrgreen:

So, both hands up for what Matt said:

… think twice before badgering readers with “vote for me” pleas. The hectoring is tiresome, it results in extraneous visual noise, it makes your site look cheap, and the benefits are dubious at best. Instead, focus on delivering great content. If you do, people will figure out how to spread the word just fine.

Erm… Content is King!… need I say more? 🙂

Spam Bookmarkers

To be frank, I’ll am quite disgusted to know that some bloggers submit each and every of his articles to all the bookmarking sites. To make it worse, I’ve read of some auto bloggers (people who just aggregate content from elsewhere) who do that. It just sounds too spammy. Disgusting. Spoils the blogosphere and the “social-bookmarkopshere”… whatever you call it. 😡

Unless you are writing for CNN news or things that are really breaking news, or really helpful or informative stuff – I think all else is not bookmark-worthy. Oh man… if only I could invent a device or thingy to just clear up all the spammy stuff on the Internet!

Google!, Yahoo!, MSN! Work hard! I believe technology will prevail! Clear those junkies out of the way!

What do you think?