What is a social bookmark?

Unlike saving the links (URLs or web addresses) of your favorite websites by using your web browser window, social bookmarking adds them to a website database for easy access by other service members or the general public. In addition, when you bookmark your favorite websites, you add the tags make them easy locate for future reference.

How Social Bookmarking Can Increase Traffic to Your Wetpaint Website

Wetpaint has added icons for easy bookmarking by your visitors. These icons are located near the bottom of your website, within the Tags panel. The yellow arrow in the image below, indicates the social bookmarking tools accessible to visitors of Wetpaint websites.



Moderators can increase traffic by:

• Explaining what social bookmarking is to website visitors and members and encouraging them to mark your site; the more frequently your Wetpaint site is bookmarked by a large number of people, the more likely it is to get greater exposure.
  
  
• Joining a social bookmarking website and marking your website. When adding bookmarks, you have the option to add a note describing what you are bookmarking or why you have marked the website. By doing so, you can clarify the purpose of your Wetpaint site and attract like minded people.
  
  
• Using social bookmarking to find other people who have similar interests and sharing bookmarks with those members.

Social Bookmarking is also useful for Moderators because:

• Some services allow you to sort your bookmark by dates. This feature is helpful if your website is designed to provide users with the up-to-date news, information, and articles.
  
  
• Access to your favorite bookmarks from any computer, since the content is stored on the Internet. This will give you the freedom to update information on your website from any location.
  
  
• If your Wetpaint site has a unique topic or name, adding it to a social bookmarking database may make it easier for others to locate it using popular search engines.
  

Social Bookmarking tools and interfaces vary from service to service.

The table below may help you decide which service best suits your interests and needs. Visit the links on the left side of the table for specific details.

Bookmarking option on Wetpaint

General Focus

Del.icio.us.com:	Business, media, media arts, and family.
Digg.com:	Technology and science, although a variety of topics can be found as well.
BlueDot.Us:	A large variety of categories to browse, all of which are listed by popular tags.
StumbleUpon:	When used as a browser extension, StumbleUpon recommends websites based on user browsing habits.