Google the other day quietly unveiled what is to be their in-house answer to Digg. Since they opted out of outright ourchase of Digg, (more than likely because they felt; rightly so, that they could do a better job anyway) there was much speculation about what Google would do. Well, here it is.

Kudos to Chris Lang for bringing “Google Reader Adds Friends List, Sharing, Bookmarking and Blog Recommendation Engine” to our attention.  In his post Chris goes into much detail as to how Google will be using this new capability, and what it may mean for those of us who use social bookmarking services, want to keep up with Google, or who merely want a sane alternative to the capricious whims of Digg.

Some of the more interesting items to me include the ability to add individual pages (posts) to your Google Reader, amd then share them with your friends, which you can now import from Gmail. They even provide you a sweet little bookmarklet to make the task ever so much more simple. It also appears that your Google Reader profile will take on more significance, and that Google may even use this to base rankings upon. More to come on that one. However, it is interesting to note that does follow links that appear in each shared post. It uses the permalink to the blog post and also links to the domain in each shared item.

Another tool for the toolbox!

~Keith

If you haven’t considered yet what your social bookmarking strategy is, or what it might be, or even if you need one, then here’s a few things to think about. A good social bookmarking strategy is essential on many levels, not the least of which is that if you do this wrong, you’ll find yourself locked up in the social bookmarking pokey in short order! (Don’t ask me what sites I’m banned from: wait for the T-shirt!)

Even the term “wrong” is relative, because each of the social bookmarking services is a bit different. What is cool at Mister Wong may be taboo at Digg, and vice versa. Certain subjects or topics are not in favor at certain sites, and you find this out the hard way sometimes. Anyhoo, here are a few things we’ve found that are usually not what you might consider a best practice:

• Promoting your own content - A big no-no on sites like Digg. Many of lesser elite sites don’t mind so much, but for the most part, you’re much better off letting your friends or network Digg, Stumble or otherwise discover your site.
• Multiple accounts - This is a tactic used by people who wear dark color hats! They register many accounts, use proxies, automated posters and other means to “game” the system. This one is against most all TOS of any of these sites.
• Duplicate content - Not in the sense you’re probably thinking. What I mean is the use of the same exact wording, headlines and text at every social bookmarking service you use. Mixing it up a little is at the very least a way of testing different headlines, anchor text and keywords. At best, it creates even more unique content with just a small tweak. 
• Frequency - Social bookmarking every single solitary post you make is not only not necessary, but can be looked upon askance. Bookmark your best stuff. What I like to do is rotate where I bookmark, kind of spreading the wealth, so to speak.
• IP addresses - If you do a lot of bookmarking for clients or friends, be aware that most of the bigger services, like Digg, monitor your IP adddress, and will come down hard on you of they suspect you’re trying to spam the system. Remember, moderation, and not your own stuff!
• Social Bookmarking AutoPosters - These software tools are an accident waiting to happen to your rankings.  A bunch of bookmarks with the same text, timestamp, and IP address all pointing to your site? Hmmmm….
• Google Slap Rumors - There are rumors rampant that Google may come down with one of it’s infamous “slaps” soon, this time targeting all the spam associated with social bookmarking sites. We shall see…

Those should give you plenty to obsess about over the next few days! Seriously though, a sane, well thought-out social bookmarking strategy can be implemented and should be. Just make sure you’re doing your level best to use the services the way they were intended to be used. The real winners when this all shakes out will be the people who’ve taken the time to create a following that will naturally bookmark and otherwise vote for their posts. This after all is the essence of the social web.

~Keith

 If you’ve looked at the size of the task and weren’t inebriated at the time, then outsourcing your social media marketing, or at least portions of it, is really the only sane solution to cover the numerous items that need to be performed on a regular basis.

Whether you choose to outsource it to your staff, freelancers or a social media marketing services firm, you need to be very clear with all concerned as to just what you want from this, to avoid wasting time and money.

Let’s take a quick inventory of all the things you may want to have outsourced, and the best way to go about it.

Content – If you have articles, blog posts, social posts or any other type of market-specific content written, you’ll want to be very careful as to who produces it and how well. If they are writing for you main site, obviously you need this to be top-notch. One popular way to do that these days is to have “guest bloggers”; others you have developed relationship with in your field whom you trust and are satisfied with the caliber of their writing, and you trade services, or in exchange for links.

If the writing is for a feeder site, blog, or for some other microblogging platform, then it may not be as crucial, particularly if your name is not on it. Still, it’s a best practice not to scrimp on your content writers as they represent your site, products and you to the world! You can outsource this type of work outside the US very cheaply, but you’re likely to notice, as will your visitors.

Site Building – If you have someone building web properties for you such as Squidoo lenses, Hubpages, Blogs this can be done fairly easily by posting your needs in places like Elance, Sitepoint or any of the other webmaster hangouts. Make sure you get what you want; for instance if you want certain keywords to appear as titles, URLs, links etc., make sure they are diligent about doing this. Also, if you are having them construct an interlinked network for you, do yourself a favor and make sure they know how to do that as you want it.

Link Building – Outsourcing having someone build links for you is one of the best uses of outsourcing, as it will have a direct positive effect on your site. If it’s done correctly, that is! Whether you task someone to do blog comments, social posts, social bookmarking or networking or article submissions, make sure they not only know how to code your links correctly for the sites that require HTML, but also that they understand how to vary your anchor text, collect RSS feeds, and ping your pages.

Social Bookmarking & Networking – These require special attention, as you not only don’t want to be accused of spamming any of these sites; you want to make it as effective as possible. Making sure not to overdo, collect RSS feeds, link-dropping where appropriate, trying to hold coherent conversations within your niche if called for; these are just some of the things you’ll want your outsourcer to pay attention to.

RSS Feeds and Videos – These are great areas to outsource as they take so much of your valuable time. There is software available out there that will greatly speed things up, and you can provide this to your staff or outsourcer.

Hiring A Social Media Marketing Services Firm - If you don’t have the time to manage this all yourself and you’d just like to get it done, then this may be your best option. Typically they will have all the pieces in place, and you won’t have to do much except provide them with the site or sites you like promoted, and a few other pertinent pieces of information, such as keywords, social accounts you may already have, and preferences etc. A good social media marketing service can save you scads of time and work, and put your site on the map.

However you end up doing it, outsourcing your social media marketing just makes sense!