Bookmark This
E-mails, calendar announcements, blog posts, electronic notifications… day by day, hour by hour, our lives are getting more and more organized… but equally overwhelmed and inundated with massive amounts of feeds, posts, articles and quizzes. Some of it is relevant, some of it is fun and some of it is clutter. How can we make sense of all the information coming at us?
Social Bookmarks.
It’s not a perfect system (if in fact, such a creature does exist), but it does help to keep track of the what matters and what doesn’t.
Social bookmarks are the new way to share with family, friends and random strangers something you find interesting. And, you can look it up later in case you want to show it again.
Such applications usually allow you to take the URL of a page and send that to friends, while bookmarking on your home browser, computer or social network for future reference.
The most common of these are: Digg, Facebook, and RSS feeds.
It’s simple and to the point – unlike everything else.
So how can you start bookmarking, and when is it appropriate?
—First, sign up for one or more of the following sites:
-Digg
-MySpace
-Stumble
-Countless others
—Once registered, most of these have the ability to take the URL of a page and copy and paste it into the share/posted items/bookmark section, such as with Facebook. Here, you post the link and a short description of what you find interesting about that site. On social networking sites, these links show up on your profile page and on some friends’ activity feeds.
—Other sites, such as Digg, work a little differently. In these cases, on the page you are interested in, there is usually a “Digg this” button that allows you to link this page to your Digg account, post a small summary and then submit. Sites such as these attract browsers who are interested in seeing what others find interesting, and the more popular the link becomes, the more attention it gets on the front pages of such sites.
—Now you have shared your link with the rest of the world, and voila – you also have that link permanently stored on your account for use later.
—Social networking does not have many rules, but the most important one is to not overdo it – users following your links (some have no choice, especially on social networking sites) will quickly get annoyed with an onslaught of links and either remove you as a friend, send you constant messages, or ignore the links, driving down the popularity.
For personal use, social bookmarking makes sharing cool facts, figures, pictures and video easy and user-friendly. For the field of Public Relations, it is a miracle – the ability of users to find something of interest on your company’s site or extensions of the site, and share it with friends. In this way, more users are drawn to your site and/or get the general idea of your site from the brief snippet provided by the shared link, and your company gets brand recognition.