While your browser’s built-in bookmarks make for a quick and easy visit to your favorite sites, external bookmarking sites can extend to images, quotes, articles and more.

If you use bookmarks often, you may need a better way to organize them and incorporate them effectively into your workday.

In this article I’ll highlight three bookmarking tools that can help boost your productivity.

#1: Licorize

The real difference in Licorize is that it is not only a bookmarking tool, but also a collaborative platform for “web workers” and their teams. Licorize connects to social networks and other web apps to make your life easier and more productive.

Available connections include Evernote, LinkedIn, Instapaper, Twitter, Dropbox, WordPress and Google Reader. You can also import and export bookmarks through Licorize, and add bookmarks on the go to any mobile device that has a browser.

Although Licorize is the only one of these tools that requires a paid account, it’s one of my favorites and therefore is first on the list. After a 7-day free trial, Licorize requires a one-time payment of $14.99 to use it for life. Considering how useful I find this app, I think its well worth the sign-up fee.

Licorize prides itself on being a bookmarking service "for the web worker tribe."

Like some of the other tools noted here, Licorize lets you sort bookmarks by type, although these are geared more to the professional, including types such as reminder, milestone, idea, place and to-do.

In the settings panel, you can choose which bookmark types to show or hide in your browser pop-up window.

A pop-up window used to add bookmarks through your browser offers more in-depth options than most bookmarking apps, but the interface is simple and easy to understand. The URL and title of the page are determined automatically, although you can change these as well as add your own notes.

Notice the colored lines surrounding the title? With one click, you can select any section of text on the page—no need to click and drag.

Although bookmarks (or strips) can be edited once they are saved, the beauty of the browser extension is how quickly you can create or add to a work plan from your browser. After adding the normal details for your bookmark (title, URL, notes and tags), you can choose from a list of projects or create a new one, assign the strip to a team member and choose a level of importance.

See that little smiley face to the right of the notes section? You can even choose an emoticon to show how you feel about this task!

The browser bookmarklet makes adding bookmarks easy, with the pop-up window shown above, but lacks any extra features. With the browser extension, you also get the options of “remind me later” and “read it and store,” as well as opening your strips panel to see bookmarks you have already saved.

The browser extension gives you more options than the bookmarklet, but both offer a quick way to save strips.

Once your bookmarks are saved, you can view and edit them at licorize.com. Bookmarks can be filtered by priority or time, and you can search using tags, calendar dates or just keywords.

Bookmarks in your account can be checked off as “done” or “read,” pinned to the top of your list or deleted. You can also add work log details to an item, showing when you worked on it and for how long.

Each strip shows details of the type of strip and which tags and project it is assigned to.

The weekly review option is a great way to catch up on what has taken place during the week, and what you have left to do. When working with others, this can help you keep on top of your projects and ensure nothing gets overlooked.

Whether you want to review only your to-do strips or everything from the past week, the weekly review option is a handy tool to have at your disposal.

And finally, Licorize lets you bring your bookmarks together and present them as a booklet. When curating content around a project or theme, this is an excellent way to present your findings and share them with others.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Ah52JImpQ

How will it add to your productivity?

Need to collect ideas and inspiration for a project or presentation? Save images, articles, snippets and full web pages under a single project banner, which can then be made into a project booklet.

Want to share information or resources with colleagues? Add them to your team in Licorize and share, collaborate and create together.

Working on a project with someone who’s not around? Add them to your project in Licorize, and share information and bookmarks, create tasks and reminders, add work log details and keep each other in the loop.

#2: Diigo

Diigo is a great tool to keep web page bookmarks organized and searchable. As well as tags and lists for organization, Diigo also offers some snazzy add-on features to make your browsing and bookmarking more efficient, including virtual post-it notes and text highlighting.

Diigo's library view lets you filter your bookmarks by type, tag or list in the left-hand panel, and orders them by date added for easy searching

Adding a bookmark to your Diigo library through its browser extension is simple, given the intuitive options provided. The title and URL are sourced automatically, leaving you to input an optional description and tags.

Diigo offers recommended tags based on the content of the page you're saving.

Collecting your bookmarks into lists makes them easier to find later. Diigo’s list feature is handy for saving sites you go back to often, or ideas and resources for particular projects.

Lists can be private or public for anyone to view.

Viewing your bookmarks in Diigo’s library saves you even more time, with a great preview feature. Clicking on the Preview button shows you the page you added to your bookmarks list, saving you the time and effort of opening up a new tab or window.

Although Diigo has great bookmarking features, there are some even better aspects that set it apart from other bookmarking apps. The bookmarklet and browser extensions offer some outstanding features, including the ability to highlight text on a page and save it to your library.

You can also create virtual sticky notes to leave on a site, which other Diigo users can see and reply to.

Diigo also offers a host of ways to view and add to your library, including apps for iPhone, iPad and Android, as well as the ability to import and export your bookmarks, cross-post to Delicious and save favorite tweets as bookmarks.

How will it add to your productivity?

Are you a compulsive bookmarker in need of organization? Import your bookmarks to Diigo and use lists and tags to get them under control.

Do you have certain bookmarks you visit regularly? Collate them into a list, making them easy to find.

Do you bookmark pages when you really just want to save an image or a quote? Use Diigo’s browser extension to save images and highlight sections of text, rather than saving whole pages.

#3: Pinterest

A different take on bookmarking than most of these tools is Pinterest. This visual bookmarking service offers users an organized way of collecting images and videos.

Pinterest is a clever way of organizing visual bookmarks.

Pinterest profiles are organized into pinboards, a way of organizing “pins”—that is, images and videos—that you save to your account. Pinboards are sorted into categories, and each one has its own URL so you can share it across the web.

Pinterest profiles show a preview of the user's pinboards and their recent activity.

When viewing a specific pin, users can add comments and “like” or “repin” the picture or video. Repinning, like Tumblr‘s reblog feature, re-posts the bookmark to your own profile, with a link to the original. Each pin also comes with options to share via Twitter, Facebook or email and an HTML embed link for your website or blog.

Pinned images and videos offer interactive features: users can like, comment, repin or share via social networks.

Creating a bookmark is easy with only a few clicks. By using Pinterest’s browser extension, users can choose from any images found on the current page and add to an existing pinboard or create a new one.

By using the dollar sign or hash key, you can add searchable tags and price points. Sharing to Twitter and Facebook can be done from the Create Pin pop-up as well.

Using the browser extension allows pins to be added from anywhere on the web with a simple pop-up.

Pinterest also lets you follow other users to keep up with their new pins. Your home page after login will be populated by any recently added bookmarks from people you follow. Even better is the ability to follow just a pinboard, rather than all of a user’s new pins.

Following other users means you won't miss any of their new pins.

Pinterest is a great way to keep images organized. If you enjoy visuals and like to come back to your favorite pictures for inspiration or reminders, keeping them collected in your Pinterest account makes this much easier.

How will it add to your productivity?

All of those infographics you have saved so you can refer to them often? Collect them all together into one pinboard.

Looking for inspiration for your website redesign or a new business card? Explore pins created by web designers, graphic designers or similar businesses to yours.

Have a huge project coming up and need to consolidate ideas? Pin them all together on a pinboard and share the URL with your team.

So, which is the best?

Of course, that depends on what you need. If you’re looking for a free option, Licorize may not be for you. If you work with others often, however, and want to share projects and bookmarks, Licorize is a great choice.

Diigo and Pinterest offer comprehensive organization of your saved items, and make them easy to collect and find.

If none of these take your fancy, you might want to try Delicious, StumbleUpon or one of these niche bookmarking sites.

And of course, let me know what you think! How do you bookmark? Have you tried any of these tools, and what did you think? Join the discussion by leaving a comment in the box below.

You’ve likely heard of StumbleUpon. But do you really understand how to use its full power?

StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking and rating site where people can “Stumble” their favorite web pages, write reviews and share their discoveries with their followers.

This network is like Delicious, but with a more enhanced social platform and sharing system.

Why Use StumbleUpon?

StumbleUpon can be a great site to organize your favorite bookmarks, although it isn’t quite as advanced as Delicious in organization. You can easily save items by giving them the thumbs-up using the “I like it” buttons on the StumbleUpon toolbars for Firefox or Chrome.

Use the StumbleUpon toolbars (Chrome on top, Firefox on bottom) to see Stumblers who like a specific page.

Aside from organizing your own favorites, StumbleUpon is also used to drive traffic to a specific webpage, photo, video or other website. When you favorite a particular item in StumbleUpon, it’s recommended to the StumbleUpon network. People who express interest in a topic will be shown your page if it falls under that topic and has received good ratings from other Stumblers when they use the Stumble button in their toolbar or when they search StumbleUpon.

Saving Your Favorites

There’s more to saving your favorite pages than just hitting the “I like it” button. You can use the Comment bubble on the Chrome toolbar or the Info button on the Firefox toolbar to go to the StumbleUpon page for the URL and enter a detailed review, which is appreciated much more than just a thumbs-up.

Whenever you’re favoriting an item, be sure to use the tag icon to add tags to your favorites. StumbleUpon’s search is less than exact when it comes to relocating something that you’ve favorited and hope to return to, so tag that item appropriately so you can find it when you need it.

A view of your tags in your StumbleUpon favorites.

You can see your own favorites’ tags by going to your favorites and selecting Tags. The ones you use the most will show up larger than the rest so you can easily spot your favorite topics, or you can hover over the Tags link to see them in order of the number of favorites you’ve added in that tag.

You can also share your StumbleUpon favorites through Twitter and Facebook icons on the toolbars.

Creating Your StumbleUpon Profile

After you’ve registered for StumbleUpon, and before you begin building your StumbleUpon network, you’ll want to create a great StumbleUpon profile. There are two aspects to your profile you’ll want to be sure to complete before you start contacting others to follow you.

Your Bio

You can create a detailed bio by going to your Settings menu to Customize Profile. In the “introduce yourself to everyone” box, you can enter a detailed description of yourself as well as links to your website, blogs and other social networks.

Your StumbleUpon profile settings page.

Although they’re nofollow links, they’ll garner you traffic as people visit your profile based on the fact that they like what you Stumble.

Here’s how your StumbleUpon profile introduction might look.

Once you have your avatar and bio information completed, the next thing you’ll want to do (if you haven’t already) is fill your profile with favorites in topics you’re interested in. This will show people who visit your profile what you’re into and that you’re active, and will make them more likely to follow you.

Finding Friends on StumbleUpon

There are plenty of guides on generating traffic from StumbleUpon. If you don’t want to wait for the luck of the draw of a power Stumbler coming across and liking your content, then your next-best bet is to build a strong following to share your content with.

Find or Invite Your Friends

The first place to search for StumbleUpon followers is within your own networks. After you’re logged in, go to the Stumblers tab and use the Find Friends option. StumbleUpon can connect to your Gmail, Yahoo or Windows Live (Hotmail) email contacts as well as your Facebook friends and Twitter followers to see if any of your connections are also Stumblers.

Find and invite your friends via email, Facebook and Twitter.

When it pulls up your contacts, it will show you their icon, user name, real name (if available), number of favorites (which shows if your connections are active), and their main interests.

StumbleUpon lists your contacts with their number of favorites and interests.

From here, you can select people you want to follow based on interest, or let it “Select All” to follow all of your contacts from a particular network.

Find Stumblers Based on Interest

There are several ways you can find Stumblers to connect with based on interest.

Topics

First off, you can see Stumblers who follow particular topics by looking under the Discover tab at your own favorite topics, listed to the right and based on the number of times you thumbs-up items tagged with that particular topic.

StumbleUpon keeps track of your favorite topics in the Discover tab.

When you look at a particular topic, you’ll see a random selection of people who like that topic.

Here’s a look at Stumblers who like a particular topic.

Next, under the Discover tab, you can look at general topics.

StumbleUpon’s general topics listing in the Discover tab.

Tags

You can also look at StumbleUpon tags for recently hot and most popular topics.

Here are Recently Hot and Most Popular All Time tags on StumbleUpon.

If you can’t find the topic or tag you’re looking for, you can add the keyword in the URL to see if it comes up, such as http://www.stumbleupon.com/discover/twitter/ or http://www.stumbleupon.com/discover/twitter-tools/.

Groups

There are also groups on StumbleUpon. They’re not easy to search – you have to go by category to find the group where people interested in a particular topic would hang out.

Here are general categories for StumbleUpon groups.

Most groups seem to be inactive—only moderators can add related sites for group members to peruse, and most of the last-added sites are over a year old. Yet many groups have 10,000+ members, so they’re a great way to find Stumblers based on interest.

By Favorite Item

If you want to be specific and only follow people who like a certain post or website, you can find out who have favorited a page that you’re on by using the StumbleUpon toolbars. If you have the Firefox StumbleUpon toolbar, for example, you would use the Info button. If you have the Chrome StumbleUpon toolbar, you would use the Comment icon.

This will take you to the StumbleUpon page for a particular URL.

Here’s a StumbleUpon URL page for Social Media Examiner.

Here you’ll see the people who’ve favorited the page as well as those who’ve written reviews. Needless to say, if you’re specifically looking for people who like writing reviews on a particular topic, you might want to start with those who are writing reviews on websites in your industry.

Connecting With Stumblers

StumbleUpon shows common interests between you and another Stumbler.

Whenever you go to a Stumbler’s profile page, you’ll see their avatar and basic biography, plus some statistics about their Stumbling habits, which will let you know whether they’re an active Stumbler.

You’ll also see whether you have a lot in common with this Stumbler based on both of your interests and items that you’ve given the thumbs-up.

Here’s how to follow a Stumbler.

If you decide to follow the user, you’ll have the added option to accept shares to your toolbar, meaning that when they want to share an item with you, it will show up in your toolbar’s inbox.

After you follow someone, if you want them to reciprocate and follow you in return, you have two options. You can send the Stumbler a message, letting them know you followed them and would like them to follow you in return so you can exchange favorites. Or you can also go the extra mile and review the Stumbler and then send them a message, letting them know you followed and reviewed them, and hope they will follow you in return to exchange favorites.

Receiving Shares

To receive shares from the people you follow, simply keep an eye on the red number in your StumbleUpon toolbar. Click on this number to get the latest shares from your following.

Your friends can share their favorites with you with comments.

Be sure to thumbs-up only the items you like, and review them for bonus points (especially if you’re hoping for reviews for your shares in return). You can also reply to the Stumbler to let them know you liked it, give them additional feedback, or answer any questions they may have asked in their request.

It’s amazing how that little response can make the difference and strengthen your connection with other Stumblers. I’ve shared items with over 500 followers and received very few replies, as many people will just thumbs-up an item and move on. Usually the people who reply to me will be the ones I notice more when they send over their next share.

Sharing Etiquette

Once you have followers, you can start sharing your favorites with them via the StumbleUpon toolbar or from the StumbleUpon page for that URL. You should include a personal message, up to 140 characters.

Sharing favorites with your followers.

Please note that there are certain rules of StumbleUpon etiquette that you must follow, especially when it comes to shares. People who are following you and accepting shares from you via their toolbar will receive these shares in their toolbar. Since StumbleUpon banned sharing to all followers, the number of shares has decreased significantly, BUT it’s still possible to overdo it and drive your followers bananas to the point that they will unfollow you.

I would suggest no more than one share a day or maybe two shares in one day if you don’t share things regularly. Any more than that will probably get you unfollowed, as no-one wants that flashing red number to be in the hundreds.

StumbleUpon Advertising

If you’re looking to share your content beyond the base of your followers, you can always look into StumbleUpon advertising, which is fairly inexpensive. I used it once and it did bring traffic to the page I had targeted.

The traffic from StumbleUpon on the days that I receive paid Stumbles spent an average of 3 minutes on the page, but the bounce rate was 96% with an exit rate of 90%. Comparatively, the traffic I received from LinkedIn Ads spent less time on the page, but had a lower bounce rate of 85% and a much lower exit rate of 60%. Of course, when it comes to cost, I received over 350 visitors from StumbleUpon Ads for a tenth of the cost of receiving fewer than 100 visitors from the LinkedIn Ads.

Needless to say, it’s important to use Google Analytics when advertising with StumbleUpon (or any other social advertising campaign) to be sure that the incoming traffic is actually valuable for your goals.

Your Stumbling Experience

If you like this article, please Stumble it (see below for Stumble link).

Do you use StumbleUpon? Please share your experience from social networking to traffic generation in the comment box below. Also, if you want to connect on StumbleUpon and share favorites, please send me a message at kikolani.

One aspect of your writing requires a great deal of effort getting right, and it is so obvious it is commonly overlooked. What is the first thing a social media user sees?

“I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories, and I get briefed by people who probably read the news themselves.”
George W. Bush

“It has been found that the less an advertisement looks like an advertisement, and the more it looks like an editorial, the more readers stop, look and read.”
David Ogilvy

Yes, you guessed it. It’s the headline.

Without a compelling headline, you will not attract attention, and your article will not spread as easily. If you do write a killer headline then you will get more clicks, more bookmarks, and your readers will be compelled to share it with their friends and contacts.

Creating Compelling Headlines

Take a look at the last article you wrote that did spectacularly well (or if you do not have a great example, choose a disaster).

• Does it grab attention? The first job you have to get right when producing a new article is to get it read, and your first task toward getting your article read is grabbing the reader’s attention.
• Will it target a particular audience? We are largely driven by self-interest and our brains are wired to look out and listen for any message that addresses us. If your headline identifies a target group specifically, then that group, if they have an affinity for it, will take notice. Be careful though, this can backfire!
• Is it specific? Highly specific approaches work much better to draw attention and create belief than generic and vague statements that can come across as untrustworthy. Rather than say “get great results” say “achieve 147.2% increase in profits with this simple tweak.”
• Are you generating a great deal of curiosity? What is going to get the reader not only to take notice but also take action? You need to give him or her a good reason to keep reading past the headline into the full article, and this is where curiosity comes in. Create a feeling of incompleteness; hold off on the punch line, so the reader has to find the answer to feel satisfied.
• Is the headline promising powerful benefits? Does your headline answer “So what?” Above all, there has to be a payoff. Your readers need to know what is in it for them, why should they care.

5 Types of Headline

The standard social media headline types tend toward the following categories:

1. News—Particularly breaking news, is very popular. Announce something, share a piece of gossip, and let people know what is happening now. Social news has made traditional news media look slow and dated because by the time the news has spread around the social sites, mainstream media is only just picking it up. The downside of this, of course, is that your content is not going to be perceived as evergreen—there will always be something newer, shinier, and trendier. For example: “Breaking News: White House Moves to Ban Bacon”
2. Goals—Offer a way to achieve a goal, get more, be more powerful, wealthy, attractive, healthier… whole magazines are full of this stuff. Just take a look next time you are at the supermarket checkout. For example: “101 Tried and Tested Dating Secrets to Win the Partner of Your Dreams”
3. Problems—The flipside to the goal is the problem. Fear sells just as well as positives; just ask the newspapers. The economy, health, worries about global politics, you name it. For example: “Finally! Make Your Computer Virus-Free With Open-Source Software”
4. How-to—Share a technique, tutorial, recipe or formula to achieve something practical and beneficial. It is kind of the same as the goal, but rather than a dream, it gives you the steps to create something in reality. For example: “How to Win Friends and Influence People”
5. Entertaining—Social media is full of pure entertainment. It might be a funny video, a cute picture, a joke or even a link to an accidentally funny forum thread. This is the coffee break content that social media was built upon. For example: “Nasty or Nice? Take The Ultimate Personality Test”

Most of all, you need to trigger an emotional reaction. Remember we do not just want “interest,” we want the reader to take an action—even if that action is just to hit the vote-up button.

Emotional Hot Buttons

If you want to really draw attention and get your readers to take action, even if it is only to comment or pass along your link to their friends, you need to grab them where it counts: show empathy and make them feel. Can you get your reader to laugh, cry, or shout at their screen? Take a tip from Hollywood and move your audience emotionally using these hot buttons.

1. Boost and Slam—What is the best/worst/most/least? Compare and contrast, particularly if you can combine with Contrary (see #10).
2. Laugh, Cheer, Snigger or Cry—Human interest that tugs the heartstrings always works. Especially when you combine weep, snigger and cheer. Just ask Susan Boyle.
3. Outrage, Anger, and Righteous Indignation—Listen to talk radio or the talking heads and their jabbing fingers on any cable news network.
4. Fear, Scams, Problems and Looming Disasters—Be afraid, get clicks.
5. Sexy, Cute and Attractive—Sex sells. Lust draws attention.
6. Divide and Conquer (Us versus Them)—Polarize your audience, get attention. Many of the chain letters you get asked to pass on are all about supporting one side of an argument while attacking another, particularly when it comes to politics.
7. Shock and Awe—Take someone by surprise, present something as outrageously and wildly different.
8. Curiosity, Confusion, Riddles and Puzzles—Make readers have to read just to get your idea out of their heads.
9. Caught in the Act—People love it when the rich, powerful and famous are caught doing something they shouldn’t, especially when it is against their accepted brand or persona.
10. Contrary, Contentious and Devil’s Advocate—Challenge accepted wisdom, deep-seated stereotypes and assumptions.

10 Headline Formulas That Work

To get you started creating compelling headlines, use the following “fill in the blanks” headline formulas.

1. Do You Make These ________ Mistakes?
2. The Secrets of ___________
3. What ______ Can Teach Us About ________
4. Everything You Know About _____ Is Wrong<
5. How _______ Made _____ and You Can Too!
6. If You ________, You Can ___________
7. Finally, No More _______
8. At Last! _________
9. Learn How Millions of ______ ________
10. How to Get More/Better/Cheaper _______

If you like these headline ideas, make sure you click here to download the free PDF 102 Proven Headline Formulas now.

Over to You

Share some of your best headlines with us in the comments!