Of Social Sites & Leaving Breadcrumbs
11 December 07
Photo by Garrulus
Being an active user on social bookmarking and voting sites are an effective way to get you and your work out there and recognized. On sites such as BZ, you are not penalized for self-promotion (submitting your own work is not frowned upon), but this can only take you so far.
A Quick Blogging Tip - You need to visit and discover other sites in order for your blog to be visited and discovered.
While you’re out discovering, be sure to leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind you so people can follow you back to your own blog. What are some proven breadcrumbs methods?
Social Trails & Breadcrumbs in the Form of…
Avatars:
Most social sites use avatars to define users. When you visit people’s pages within the site, your avatar is left behind in a recent visitors list making the owner of the page aware of your recent visit.
Sites such as MyBlogLog and Blogcatalog offer widgets to track recent visitors, and many blogs make use of them. Using these services and creating a distinguishable avatar is a small measure to take towards branding and leaving breadcrumbs. These small measures, however, will make a large impact in the long run.
Comments:
So you’ve read a post that you’ve enjoyed and found useful. Leaving a thorough and genuine comment will make the author aware of your visit. Mentioning specific parts you liked or elaborating on a certain point let’s them know that you’ve actually read the article, and gives you the appearance that you aren’t just leaving comments to receive a backlink.
When commenting, you contribute to the appearance of activity on the blog (ie make it look more populated, and less dead…if that is the case), and you establish your presence. I follow the signature link left behind by contributing commenters, and I believe it is a common practice of many blog owners.
Now that you’ve left a comment, why not take it one step further with the next breadcrumb?
Social Voting and Submissions:
In continuation from the previous paragrah…if you’ve found the article useful, chances are someone else will also. Submit it to a social bookmarking so others can discover it. If it has already been submitted by someone else, then vote it up (or stumble, zoom, sphinn…whatever it’s called on the specific site).
What good does this do for you, as this isn’t an article of your own?
Well, most bloggers are willing to reciprocate favors. For example, if you’ve voted up someone’s post, most likely that person will be willing to pay a visit to your site to see if you have anything worth voting for or sharing. Good deeds can go a long way in the blogosphere, so it is a good idea to make giving a common practice.
However, good deeds do go unnoticed. Easy accessibility is a key to recognition, so make it more apparent that you’re putting forth an effort towards discovery and socializing with the next breadcrumb.
Reviews of Social Submissions:
It’s sometimes difficult to track down those who have voted for you or stumbled one of your posts. Leaving a review or comment on the social site will make it easier to find you. I mentioned before that I like to message my thanks to people who submit my articles…well, the first ones I find are the ones who have also left a review, so those are the first ones I thank. Next to the review, in most cases, are the users avatar containing a link to that users page.
Just a Start
The above is just a few forms of breadcrumbs to start off with that will contribute in making a name for yourself and exposing your website. I’ll be writing about more trail blazing methods in the future. If you’ve got any methods you’d like to share, feel free to let us all in on it.
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6 Responses to “Of Social Sites & Leaving Breadcrumbs”
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In regards to including ‘add to social bookmark’ buttons to your page, my response would be that it is alot more valuable to have people vote for your social bookmark submission. The logic behind this is that if you have say 1000 visitors to your site and they each add your submission to Digg, the users of Digg are about 99% more likely to bury your submission rather than vote for it - if you have 1000 copies of the same thing chances are they will all get buried.
Instead if people from your site vote for your submission, you then have a social bookmark with 1000 votes - this is alot more powerful both from a Social Bookmarking and SEO perspective, as this submission will then be included on the first couple of pages of the social bookmarks site. Hence you should really replace your ‘add to X’ toolbar to ‘vote for me on X’. There are exceptions including ‘add me as a friend on X’ where it is beneficial to reach out to alot of different sub-networks.
I agree with your statement, but perhaps you misunderstood me. I make no mention of adding social bookmark buttons to your own page. I was referring to bookmarking a post on a blog that is not your own. Here’s quote from the post:
“Submit it to a social bookmarking so others can discover it. If it has already been submitted by someone else, then vote it up (or stumble, zoom, sphinn…whatever it’s called on the specific site).”
However, thank you for your thoughts.
In leaving comments, its true that you should atleast let the author know the points you like about his/her article. As well as what is lacking in the content of his/her write-up. At this point both of you are learning from each other and growing as pro bloggers.
I like to elaborate on what is lacking in the article, but my intentions are to add to the discussion rather than prove the author wrong. I believe respect is always a priority.
I think it is a great post and it contains relevant content. Everyone is trying to get their blog noticed and any post which suggests ways to me are great.
As for leaving comments, some times comments are misunderstood. When talking face to face with someone they see your facail expressions and hear your tone of voice, make a misunderstanding less likely.
@Mike
Yes, I’ve been getting misunderstood a lot lately ;). I think perhaps I need more emoticons lol