Here’s a look at social bookmarking, why it’s useful, and how it differs from saving a bookmark to your web browser.
How Social Bookmarking Works
Social bookmarking services are centralized online services where users can store and share online links, or bookmarks, with other members of the community. These sites usually provide a combination of organizational and social tools, allowing users to annotate and categorize their bookmarks as well as comment on and discuss topics with other interested users.
Social Bookmarking vs. Browser Bookmarks
We bookmark websites or links in our browsers so that we can easily access them again, but social bookmarking goes beyond this simple retrieval functionality. With social bookmarking, you not only save your favorites sites, but you can send them to friends, see what other people find interesting, browse popular links and categories, and much more. Most social bookmarking sites let you search through bookmarked links on subjects that range from shopping, technology, and politics to blogging, news, and sports. Most offer search tools where you can search through what other users have bookmarked by typing in your search term.
Popular Social Bookmarking Sites
Evernote
Evernote is a popular social bookmarking service that acts as a note-taking app designed for creating, organizing, and storing various media files. It’s a great tool for collecting and archiving information.
Pocket is another social bookmarking service designed for users to curate their own space with articles, videos, and stories from any publication, page, or app. The paid version of Pocket lets users annotate, highlight, and add notes articles.
Digg
Digg is more of a social news site, with articles spanning a wide array of current events. Like, bookmark, or share Digg content on social media, or publish your own articles on Digg to share with other users.
Pinterest is a social network with social bookmarking features. Create Pinterest boards and save content to share and come back to later. Interact with other users who are interested in the same topics.
Mix
Mix calls itself a “personal discovery platform.” Choose topics that interest you, and Mix curates content you can come back to later. Follow other Mix users to see their saved content on your feed. This is a great way for colleagues to share resources.
Scoop.it
Scoop.it is available in a free version for individuals as well as a paid business version. The service finds content for you that matches your interests across multiple WordPress blogs, and you can distribute that content to your network.
Medium
Medium is a blogging platform and a social bookmarking site where users can publish and save content to read later.
How Can I Benefit From Social Bookmarking?
Social bookmarking sites let people keep up on trending news and events with curated, relevant information. For professionals, they’re a great way to save articles and resources that can improve your skills and knowledgebase. For businesses, participating in social bookmarking sites can boost your brand awareness and web traffic by allowing users access to your content.
