WHAT IS SOCIAL BOOKMARKING?

A good social bookmarking definition begins with the history of the concept. It was first thought of in April of 1996, with the launch of the very first social bookmark, itList.com. From that point on, the business began to grow, and social bookmarking became known for building relevant links, bringing in traffic and new customers, and the other benefits of social bookmarking that businesses can take advantage of.

To define social bookmarking is to examine how they work. Basically links are listed on a network, then whoever has access to that network can search for links that pertain to the keywords that person is searching for. Each link has three keywords associated with it, generally keywords that are optimised on their webpages, and when those keywords are searched for, ideally, it is that particular link that comes up.

The concept of social bookmarking can be compared to personal bookmarks, or favorites lists. These networks allow people to add links they like, not just their own. Social bookmarking can be used by anyone, but is generally utilised for business to business information, or business to consumer information.

When a link is ready to be put into a social bookmarking network, it is first tagged or submitted to a social bookmarking site. It is tagged with three keywords that are optimised on the website, and then a description of the website is added. From that point on, it can be searched through the keywords on the network.

What Does Social Bookmarking Do For Businesses?

No social bookmarking definition can be complete without an analysis of what it can do for businesses. Obviously, social bookmarking has some excellent marketing qualities, or nobody would do it. Some of the ways that social bookmarking helps businesses include:

Building relevant incoming links
Draws visitors
Draws new clients or customers
Helps people find the business
Helps businesses find other businesses
Draws a lot of traffic
What Websites Are Known Social Bookmarks?

There are many websites out there that are known as social bookmarking sites, or define social bookmarking. These sites are meant strictly to list these links and make them searchable. Some of these websites are private and you have to pay a fee to search through them, but others are free for anyone to use, obviously looking for regular people to use them. Some of these social bookmarking websites are:
Technorati.com – A blog and business social bookmarking website
Del.icio.us – A popular social bookmarking service that is the most famous
Yahoo Bookmarks – A bookmarking service hosted by Yahoo.com as one of their many services
Google Bookmarks – Another bookmarking service, hosted by Google.com and intended for normal people as well as businesses to use.