Any online marketing campaign will have to consider the vast potential of social bookmarking sites.
The double edged sword of bookmark marketing is that the users are quite savvy: This comfort with the web is what gives viral marketing its great strength and reach, but it also makes bookmarking users skeptical of even the most refined and subtle marketing campaigns.
So while these communities can be hard to infiltrate or manipulate for commercial purposes, there are legitimate ways to get the word out about your brand through this powerful platform.
Be a Helpful Voice The first prerequisite to any self-serving promotion is active participation in the community.
There is no surer way to be banned than to sign up and begin to create links for your own gain before even voting on or commenting on previously submitted content.
On most bookmarking sites, your user profile will be completely public, and it is the context that others will use when judging your usefulness as a member of the community.
If your entire profile is little but a selfish attempt at linking to mediocre content, you're likely to be ignored at best or banned at worst.
To build a positive profile in the community, you need a history of being a helpful participant.
Read the submissions and comments, and try to take a moment to answer any user-submitted questions you have knowledge about.
Not only do you help out anyone who was curious about the particular question, you also get a chance to put your expertise on display.
Of course, you can't let that go to your head! Don't become so certain in your own intellect that you end up sounding condescending and arrogant.
Many fall to that trap when they're answering the same question for the dozenth time...
Learn to Laugh One thing that any veteran of online communities can tell you is that its hard to survive for long without a sense of humor.
This is especially true when you're working with marketing and you're putting yourself and your work in a situation where it can be mocked and insulted.
Some people thrive on conflict, and the relative anonymity of the internet seems to encourage people to blow off steam.
When you're trying to make money and they're frustrated, you can expect a lot of abuse not too different than the teasing a kid might encounter in grade school.
As always, the best way to deal with this is humor: Not only do you have to be able to laugh at yourself, you also have to use humor to win over allies and defuse conflicts.
Whatever you do, don't take things too seriously! Know the Community If you're really getting involved and trying to help out, you should pick up on some of the interests of the bookmarking community.
This knowledge can help you create future content that will be particularly relevant and more effective for your audience.
When you combine these themes and memes with the objectives of your marketing campaign, you can create the exact type of sales approach that maximizes your potential revenue.
Just don't take it too far, because in the extreme this may seem like pandering.
Only the Best When you have established yourself and made a few friends, you can probably get away with sharing some of your own stuff.
The thing is, unless you only stick to the best and most interesting pieces, this opportunity won't last long.
Ask yourself if its really something that informs of entertains or if was a post you published late at night because of a nagging need to do something.
No where does quality matter more than on a bookmarking site - even if you can rig the votes required to reach the front page, the admins will eventually smell a rat if your posts don't live up to their editorial expectations.
Patience is still a virtue Patience and humility will be the two key characteristics that differentiate bookmark marketing campaigns to other media.
Where you might be tempted by instinct and experience to push an aggressive campaign off the bat, you have to approach the bookmarking community in a more organic and measured way.
Focus on friendships and networks and understanding first, and then when you feel right at home you'll know exactly what gets the attention of the bloggers and netizens who can make your brand go viral in a big way.
The double edged sword of bookmark marketing is that the users are quite savvy: This comfort with the web is what gives viral marketing its great strength and reach, but it also makes bookmarking users skeptical of even the most refined and subtle marketing campaigns.
So while these communities can be hard to infiltrate or manipulate for commercial purposes, there are legitimate ways to get the word out about your brand through this powerful platform.
Be a Helpful Voice The first prerequisite to any self-serving promotion is active participation in the community.
There is no surer way to be banned than to sign up and begin to create links for your own gain before even voting on or commenting on previously submitted content.
On most bookmarking sites, your user profile will be completely public, and it is the context that others will use when judging your usefulness as a member of the community.
If your entire profile is little but a selfish attempt at linking to mediocre content, you're likely to be ignored at best or banned at worst.
To build a positive profile in the community, you need a history of being a helpful participant.
Read the submissions and comments, and try to take a moment to answer any user-submitted questions you have knowledge about.
Not only do you help out anyone who was curious about the particular question, you also get a chance to put your expertise on display.
Of course, you can't let that go to your head! Don't become so certain in your own intellect that you end up sounding condescending and arrogant.
Many fall to that trap when they're answering the same question for the dozenth time...
Learn to Laugh One thing that any veteran of online communities can tell you is that its hard to survive for long without a sense of humor.
This is especially true when you're working with marketing and you're putting yourself and your work in a situation where it can be mocked and insulted.
Some people thrive on conflict, and the relative anonymity of the internet seems to encourage people to blow off steam.
When you're trying to make money and they're frustrated, you can expect a lot of abuse not too different than the teasing a kid might encounter in grade school.
As always, the best way to deal with this is humor: Not only do you have to be able to laugh at yourself, you also have to use humor to win over allies and defuse conflicts.
Whatever you do, don't take things too seriously! Know the Community If you're really getting involved and trying to help out, you should pick up on some of the interests of the bookmarking community.
This knowledge can help you create future content that will be particularly relevant and more effective for your audience.
When you combine these themes and memes with the objectives of your marketing campaign, you can create the exact type of sales approach that maximizes your potential revenue.
Just don't take it too far, because in the extreme this may seem like pandering.
Only the Best When you have established yourself and made a few friends, you can probably get away with sharing some of your own stuff.
The thing is, unless you only stick to the best and most interesting pieces, this opportunity won't last long.
Ask yourself if its really something that informs of entertains or if was a post you published late at night because of a nagging need to do something.
No where does quality matter more than on a bookmarking site - even if you can rig the votes required to reach the front page, the admins will eventually smell a rat if your posts don't live up to their editorial expectations.
Patience is still a virtue Patience and humility will be the two key characteristics that differentiate bookmark marketing campaigns to other media.
Where you might be tempted by instinct and experience to push an aggressive campaign off the bat, you have to approach the bookmarking community in a more organic and measured way.
Focus on friendships and networks and understanding first, and then when you feel right at home you'll know exactly what gets the attention of the bloggers and netizens who can make your brand go viral in a big way.