SES 2007: Social Bookmarking Strategies

This afternoon I attended the Social Bookmarking Strategies session within the Search Engine Strategies 2007 NY conference which was moderated by Alex Bennert and the speakers included: Todd Malicoat, Lee Odden, Neil Patel, and Michael Gray. I was looking forward to hearing Neil speak but for some reason he was only part of the q&a portion. Below are my notes. Honestly, for most of the CN audience, nothing will appear new.

Lee Odden

• Lee discusses why web based bookmarks are better than local bookmarks. Goal is to get people to share your content with others via these sites.
• Difference between social news (digg, reddit) and social bookmarks (delicious and furl). News is hot now, Bookmarks are for the future.
• Shows Delicious as the most popular social bookmarking site. Then shows how to actually bookmark a link with Delicious! WOO!
• Shows Furl and explains that they cache content.
• Shows Blinklist and their excellent widget for syndication.
• Shows Magnolia and says they are basically low to medium for marketing. Notes that you can group things together.
• Shows Google Bookmarks and explains that personalized results will be affected. Also offers an IE toolbar for the bookmarks.
• Use this 301url.com/social-bookmarks to find hundreds of social bookmarks.
• Tips: become a user, pick a tool, place buttons prominently, don't overkill, match bookmark service to audience, track referrals.

Todd Malicoat aka StuntDubl

• His presentation is dated 2006 - I sure hope this is not a rehash of a year ago!
• Why use Del.icio.us? Bookmark aggregation, Repeat traffic and loyal visitors, Real traffic and Great users
• He explains how you should spam your friends and buddy lists to help you hit the home page of delicious.

Michael Gray

• Why do research for social media?
  -- find out whats working and not working
  -- discover trends
  -- discover key players
  -- watch the competition
  -- find out what people are saying about you
• He loves RSS
• Explains how to use the Digg feature for research - I disagree with him completely
• Shows Netscape and how it has no search feature
• Shows StumbleUpon and its research capability with its stars function
• Shows Delicious and the history feature for a post
• Discusses how to track your company and the competition using the news services and social media sites