Can your Blog Benefit from Social Blogmarking?

The world of the internet is an awesome (um… and really giant) sharing platform; a way for everyone to share, like or favorite almost anything possible, right?  And sharing is an excellent way for products, Websites and brands to gain exposure and increase their company’s following and reputation.

But what if you’re not a large company?

What if you don’t even sell anything?  Many companies and personal blogs belong to a certain niche.  Gardening.  Watercolors.  Specialty Pet Food.  Business Management Techniques.  The most widely used method small niche blogs like these use is social media; and social media takes time.  Lots of time if you want to do it well, interact with your followers and build reputation and influence.  New bloggers sometimes have a hard time with this.

Here comes Social Blogmarking.

Social blogmarking is exactly what it sounds like.  Similar to bookmarking a site, social blogmarking sites allow you to write a post, submit it to a blogmarking site and allows users vote it “up” or “down” or to the front of the page depending on how well they enjoyed the content.

Blogmarking is great for niche websites.

Social blogmarking can be utilized to draw more focused attention to your blog.  The traffic you try hard to target through social media may find you on their own through a blogmakring site.   It is also a great way to network with other bloggers and explore possible competitors.

Many social blogmarking sites, such as Blogengage and DesignFloat have navigation menus that allow you to search other niches, read and vote.  This is not to say at all that social media is better or worse.  Social media works amazingly for brand building and connecting to your audience, but takes far more time and dedication than blogmarking.

Personally, I believe good results should come from good, hard work – so more hours poured into Social Media outlets should return favorable results.  Realistically, however, not everyone has just a few extra hours laying around everyday to promote themselves properly.

Social blogmarking in the end…

Using both methods of social media and blogmarking may work well for some.  If you have written a blog, share it with Social Media like Facebook or Twitter!  Let others spread it across the world for you and shout it from the mountain tops!  And while you’re at it, submit it to a social blogmarking site.

I suggest Blockube; so far I’ve found this site to be more stylish and easier to navigate than other blogmarking sites .  It’s simple to blogmark your own posts and let others vote on its relevance, content and readability (less of a popularity contest, more focused on content).  Also, remember to pay attention to the votes you get; you can use social blogmarking sites to learn what you are doing right or wrong by what kind of votes you receive.

Photo thanks to Flickr users Search Engine People Blog and Chispita_666