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.

What’s New This Week?

Facebook Send Button:  You now have the option of adding a Send button to your content, similar to the Facebook Link button. This new button allows your readers to choose people they want to share your content with.

Readers can "send" links to Facebook Groups, Facebook friends and even to email addresses.

Your Facebook friends will see your Deals unless you change your privacy settings.

Klout Launches New Site: This new version allows you to “compare your Klout profile to others, gain new insight on your score, see the latest Klout Perks, and control which influencers are displayed on your profile.”

The new Klout "shows more relevant topic and influencer data and a clearer view of how your Klout is changing over time."

YouTube Founders Acquire Delicious From Yahoo!:  Delicious users will be happy to hear that this popular bookmarking platform has a new owner, Avos, that plans to “make the site even easier and more fun to save, share, and discover the web’s ‘tastiest’ content.”

"Yahoo! will continue to operate Delicious until approximately July 2011." When the transition period is complete, information will be moved over to Avos.

Here are a couple of other social media tools worth a look.

PressJack: A desktop application that allows publishers to convert their web content into digital magazines instantly. A desktop version of the application is currently available in beta.

PressJack makes it easy to organize your content into a beautifully laid out digital magazine.

WP4FB: A free WordPress template to create Facebook landing pages.

Worth a try?

And don’t miss this:

Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Success Summit 2011: Check out the largest online social media conference! Help your business grow with social media.

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

What’s New This Week?

SlideShare Announces Zipcast for Live Web Meetings: This new tool allows you to run live video meetings alongside your SlideShare presentations. The video quality is basic but it’s easy to use. Zipcast is integrated with social media buttons, offers a live-stream chat feature and allows up to 5000 participants. Zipcast’s basic public meetings are free and there’s a paid ad-free version which allows password-protected meetings. This could be an interesting way for some businesses to start web broadcasting. How will you take advantage of this new platform?

Call a live virtual meeting to review your SlideShare presentation by video and use the chat feature to communicate with the attendees.

Gist Acquired by Research in Motion (Blackberry): Blackberry users can look forward to more social navigation on their phones. How important is your phone becoming for your social networking?

Gist provides a web-based experience and enables users to build stronger professional relationships.

Twitter Announces Translation Center: Twitter is already available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. This new feature allows Twitter to crowdsource translation to be able to roll out other languages faster.

Passionate Twitter users can now help Twitter launch additional languages.

Digg Stops Accepting RSS Submissions: Digg has retracted the automatic submissions of posts via RSS, a new feature it announced less than a year ago. Will this impact your social bookmarking?

The rules for social bookmarking with Digg have changed.

TED Launches TED Conversations: “This is the first time online conversations have an expiration date, which is designed to keep conversations, Q&As and debates on-topic, relevant and accessible for time-strapped visitors.” Will you be joining in discussions here?

Join "conversations with notable TEDsters like Seth Godin, game designer Jane McGonigal, Tim O’Reilly, economist Dan Ariely and other speakers, TED conference attendees, and TED community members."

Here’s another new social media tool worth a look:

Bump: Create a profile on Bump to connect the license plate of your car with an email address so others can communicate with you.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csq37RB1CFk

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

Depending on your niche or industry, you may find that channeling all of your energy into broad social bookmarking networks that cover almost every topic imaginable may not benefit you.

Instead of targeting networks that only have a percentage of users interested in your topic, why not find a network whose members and visitors are 100% interested in your niche?

The following are popular niche social bookmarking networks for bloggers, business professionals, developers and designers.

#1: BizSugar

BizSugar is a social bookmarking network dedicated to news and tips for small businesses. It covers marketing, finance, franchises, global, legal, management, technology and startups. Home page stories receive an average of 20 to 30 votes, or “sugars.” You can easily retweet the original source from the BizSugar home page, as well as share it on StumbleUpon, Delicious, Facebook, Google Buzz and email.

You can also create detailed profiles including links to your website, main social profiles and even a link to your latest blog post via RSS feed. You can become friends with other users, send them direct private messages and comment on stories.

If you’re looking to make friends with the most active users, you can view them in the top users list based on various network activity (story submissions, votes and comments).

BizSugar Stats & Tools

• BizSugar receives an average of 40,000 unique visitors per month and has over 200 members.
• The most popular story in the last year is How Can I Look “Amazing” on LinkedIn with 107 sugars.
• BizSugar has an active blog covering social media and network news.
• Tools for website owners include voting buttons, badges and a top stories widget for your website as well as a WordPress plugin.
• Tools for users include a bookmarklet and toolbars for Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.
• You can follow BizSugar on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

BizSugar is a social bookmarking network for small business news.

#2: Blog Engage

Blog Engage is a social bookmarking network and community specifically for bloggers who write about any topic from blogging to technology and anything in between. Home page stories receive an average of 10 to 20 votes. You can easily share items from the Blog Engage home page to a variety of networks using the Share This link under each story.

On Blog Engage, you’re able to create your own profile and you can add other members as friends. Interaction between users can happen in a variety of places through commenting on stories, participating on the Blog Engage forums and sharing stories within groups.

If you’re looking to make friends with the most active users, Blog Engage also offers a list of top users based on network activity.

Blog Engage Stats & Tools

• Blog Engage receives an average of 19,000 unique visitors per month and has over 400 members.
• The most popular story in the last year is Google PageRank Score Too Low? with 96 votes.
• Blog Engage has an active blog covering social media and blogging. They also have regular guest blogging contests.
• Tools for website owners include voting buttons, badges and a WordPress plugin.
• Tools for users include a bookmarklet, which you can find in your user dashboard when logged into the network.
• You can follow Blog Engage on Twitter and Facebook.

Blog Engage is a social bookmarking network for bloggers.

#3: Design Bump

Design Bump is a social bookmarking network for designers looking to share stories and tutorials for web design, graphic design and even niche design topics such as architecture and industrial design. Items on the home page receive an average of 10 to 20 votes.

Although interaction on Design Bump is limited to comments on stories, you’re able to create a basic profile and include up to 12 images that will link to your portfolio. Top users are listed based on network activity.

Design Bump Stats & Tools

• Design Bump receives an average of 30,000 unique visitors per month and has over 8,000 members.
• The most popular recent story is 50 Free High Quality Icon Sets with 27 votes.
• Tools for website owners include embeddable buttons and an official top stories widget.

Design Bump is a social bookmarking network for designers.

#4: Design Float

Design Float is another popular social bookmarking community for designers, covering topics similar to Design Bump. Home page stories receive 10 to 20 votes and can be shared on Twitter.

On Design Float, you can create a basic profile, and although you can add each other as friends, interaction is again limited to story comments. Top users are also recognized by network activity.

Design Float Stats & Tools

• Design Float receives an average of 108,000 unique visitors per month, has over 65,000 members, and has over 7,000 RSS subscribers.
• The most popular story in the last year is 33 Awesomely Cool Science Fiction Wallpapers with 55 votes.
• Design Float has an active blog with roundup posts of artwork, design, tutorials and resources.
• Tools for website owners include voting buttons, top stories widgets and a WordPress plugin.
• Tools for users include a bookmarklet for easy story submission.
• You can follow Design Float on Twitter.

Design Float is a social bookmarking network for designers.

#5: DZone

DZone is a social bookmarking network for website developers and programmers. Home page stories receive 5 to 15 votes and can be shared via Twitter. You can create a very basic profile and interaction is limited to story comments and forum participation.

DZone Stats & Tools

• DZone receives an average of 194,000 unique visitors per month and has over 25,000 RSS subscribers.
• The most popular story in the last year is the Amazing HTML5 Paint App with 114 votes.
• Tools for website owners include a voting button.
• Tools for users include a Firefox voting plugin.
• You can follow DZone on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

DZone is a social bookmarking network for developers.

#6: SERPd

SERPd is a social bookmarking network for Internet and search engine marketers. Home page stories receive 15 to 25 votes, anywhere from 50 to 150 views and can be shared via Twitter and StumbleUpon.

You can create a profile, follow other members, send private messages and interact in the comments on stories. Top users are listed at the bottom of the site in the footer.

On a side note, social interaction was actually the reason SERPd was created, as a reaction to the popular search news site Sphinn changing from Digg-style user voting to moderator-approved stories only. I’ll give Sphinn the honorable mention, as they still allow members to “suggest” stories and the ones selected are usually top-notch.

SERPd Stats & Tools

• SERPd receives an average of 19,000 unique visitors per month – quite impressive considering they only started in September 2010.
• The most popular story since the network started is 7 SEO Experts to Avoid with 44 votes and 1,600+ views.
• Tools for website owners include a social voting button and banner.
• You can follow SERPd on their blog, Twitter and Facebook.

SERPd is a social bookmarking network for Internet marketers.

#7: Tip’d

Tip’d is a social bookmarking network for those interested in finance and business topics including real estate, currencies, entrepreneurship, career and economy. Home page stories receive 15 to 20 “tips,” or votes, and can be shared on other social networks using the Save and Share widget.

You’re able to create a profile and add other users as friends to interact via private messaging as well as story comments. Top users are listed based on network activity. You can even see what domains have the most votes on Tip’d by visiting the top domains page.

Tip’d Stats & Tools

• Tip’d receives an average of 48,000 unique visitors a month, and has over 61,000 members and 4,000 RSS subscribers.
• The most popular story in the last year is 6 ways to find free money with 59 votes.
• Tools for website owners include voting buttons, a WordPress plugin, and a Feedflare for Feedburner command to ensure an “Add to Tip’d” link appears along with your blog’s feed items so subscribers can submit your story to Tip’d from their feed reader.
• Tools for users include a bookmarklet for easy story submission.
• Follow Tip’d on Twitter and Facebook.

Tip'd is a social bookmarking network for financial news, ideas and tips.

What are your favorite niche social bookmarking networks?

Have you used any of these sites? I know this can’t be all of them, so please share your favorite niche social bookmarking networks, as well as any advice you would give others on how to be successful in getting their stories to the top of these networks. Leave your comments 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.

It also brings a very powerful community aspect to social bookmarking. This article will reveal innovate ways to use Delicious.

8 Innovative Uses for Delicious

So why should you use social bookmarking instead of just your browser? Two important reasons include that your bookmarks can be shared with others using a specific URL or RSS feed, and they can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection.

Delicious show popularly bookmarked pages on it’s home page.

But there are lot more reasons to consider using Delicious. Here are eight more:

#1: Organizing Your Resources

Probably the most obvious reason to use Delicious is to organize the content you come across on a daily basis for future use. It’s hard to read every great blog post that’s shared with you through other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Why not bookmark them for later, so whenever you’re looking for information on a particular topic, you have a great compilation of favorite articles and pages to choose from?

#2: Action Plans

Another thing I find when I’m browsing the web or reading a great how-to post—I want to actually use that information, but not necessarily at the time I find it. So instead of possibly forgetting about what a great idea it is, I create action tags instead.

For example, you can use tags such as actionbusinesscard to save a page on a great business card design service that you want to use to redesign your business cards, actionlinkedin for posts on LinkedIn tips and marketing, or actionfacebookpage to save a great post on how to create fan-only Facebook content.

#3: Company Sharing

Because my company does content marketing, we share a lot of links to great content development ideas back and forth by email. Instead of having to dig through a bunch of emails to find something in particular, we set up a company-wide Delicious account and now we bookmark items there. This way, whenever we want to see the latest finds in infographics or graphic design resources, we can refer to our Delicious bookmarks. This can be used to get employees active in not only learning new things, but also sharing what they learn with their colleagues in any industry.

#4: Backlink Recording

There are tons of ways for link-builders to keep track of the links they build for their websites, from Excel spreadsheets to paid software. But what if you want to do it faster? With Delicious, you can simply bookmark a page you requested a link from and tag it by topic, quality or type for future reference. So if you’re making a comment on a .edu blog about pets, your tags would be edu pets blogcomment, and the next time you need to look for one of those three elements for another link, they would be right in your Delicious bookmarks.

#5: Social Networking Profiles

Do you create profiles on sites only to forget about them later? Bookmarking them in Delicious not only gives the profile a little link juice, but will keep the profile links handy in case you want to share them or at least remember what networks you’re on. You can tag them with socialprofile updatemonthly so you know that it’s a network you want to update on a certain schedule.

#6: Social Mentions

A great idea by Ari Herzog is to use Delicious as a way to keep track of mentions about you in articles, or as he likes to call it, sharing his ego. Keeping track of these kinds of mentions could come in handy for testimonials or references in your own writing or websites.

#7: Writing Showcase

Combining Ari’s ego idea and a great template, you can use Delicious RSS feeds to create a customized portfolio.

Separate Delicious RSS feeds help generate the content on this portfolio page.

I made some WordPress customizations to a theme that gives you the option to import your Delicious bookmarks, and I use it as my own portfolio, separating guest posts from article directory entries by using the feeds for my bookmarks tagged with guestpost and articles.

#8: Don’t Lose Your Bookmarks!

Last, but not least, if you’re paranoid like I am, you’ll want to know that your bookmarks won’t be lost if something happens to Delicious itself. Delicious offers the option to export your bookmarks and download them as an HTML file. Just set a reminder to do this periodically to save your bookmarks just in case something should happen, à la Magnolia.

Now, let’s look at how to use Delicious and why you should use this particular network for your bookmarking needs.

Signing Up

If you don’t already have an account with Delicious (you can use the old-school login page here for accounts created before Yahoo took over), you’ll need a Yahoo account to sign up. Click on join now on Delicious and login to your Yahoo account.

Delicious Username

You’ll be given an option to create a Delicious username similar to your Yahoo ID or create a custom Delicious username. Consider as you create your custom Delicious username that it will also be the URL for your account (delicious.com/username).

Importing Bookmarks

After choosing your username, you’re given the option to import your bookmarks from your browser. You can choose to have your browser bookmarks imported as private or public.

Delicious Tools

Delicious offers a variety of tools to help you conveniently save bookmarks and review bookmarked pages.

Firefox Add-On

Probably the most useful tool for Delicious is the Firefox Add-On. Once installed, you’ll be able to:

#1: Access your bookmarks via a drop-down menu from Firefox.

See your bookmarks in your Firefox menu bar.

You can view your bookmarks based on Recently Bookmarked, Most Visited and Tags. You can also use the More About This Page option to see if a page is already bookmarked on Delicious, how many times it has been bookmarked and which members have saved it publicly.

#2: Keep your bookmarks open on the left side of your browser.

See your bookmarks on the left side of your browser window.

You can sort your tags alphabetically or by most used, and your bookmarks alphabetically, by site, by date added, by most visited or by last visited.

#3: Keep your bookmarks in a toolbar.

See your bookmarks in a customized toolbar.

If you’re not a fan of using the menu bar option or shrinking your browser space with the sidebar, you can simply have a toolbar that displays your bookmarks by the latest added or by favorite tags. I personally like the Favorite Tags because you can customize it for your most visited topics.

Put your favorite tags in your Delicious toolbar.

#4: Use Ctrl-D or the option in your right-click menu to save a bookmark on Delicious.

Want to save a bookmark quickly to Delicious? Simply hit Ctrl-D to toggle the window to save your bookmark.

Bookmarklets

If you’re not a fan of add-ons or if you use another browser, Delicious also offers some helpful bookmarklets to drag onto your browser’s bookmark toolbar.

Use bookmarklets in any browser .

• Bookmark on Delicious—This bookmarklet will allow you to bookmark the page.
• My Delicious—This bookmarklet will take you to your bookmarks on Delicious.
• Bookmark History—Want to know how many times a page has been saved and by whom? Use this bookmarklet to go to the Delicious bookmark for any page that you’re on.

Connecting With Others

Whenever you’re on another user’s profile, you can add him or her to your network using the options on the top right of the profile.

Add other users to your network.

Unfortunately, the only way that other users will know is if you tell them, or if they notice you’re following them in their network listing.

See whom you're following, and who's following you in your network.

Saving a Bookmark

These are your basic options when saving a bookmark.

Whenever you save a bookmark to Delicious, you have several options to fill in about the bookmark. Delicious will automatically pull in the URL and the title (based on the title tag of the page or post you’re saving). You can edit these as needed.

Notes

Notes are your additional description/information about your bookmark.

Your notes will be displayed with your bookmark.

Tags

Be sure to use descriptive tags for your bookmarks, as they will be key to finding relevant information again. Tags are space-separated, and if you’re using multiple words, they should be run together, such as socialmedia.

Use tags to organize your Delicious bookmarks.

You can start typing in a tag, and it will bring up a drop-down, or you can select it from the complete list of tags below.

Send

You can share your latest bookmarks with your fans if you think they might like them. Start typing in the name to get a drop-down or use the Send tab to select the fans you want to share with.

Send your bookmark to fans who have the same interests.

You can also add a personal message (up to 116 characters) to your fans about the bookmark.

Send a message with your bookmark.

When you save your bookmark, it will be sent to the other user and arrive in his or her inbox.

Privacy

Want to keep that bookmark to yourself? Simply check the Mark as Private box. Otherwise your bookmarks are visible to anyone who happens to come across your profile.

Subscriptions

If you’re interested in particular topics, you can subscribe to those tags by going to your subscriptions area and Add a Subscription.

Create subscriptions to follow your favorite topics.

You can follow a particular tag and even specify bookmarks with that tag from a specific member.

RSS

If you prefer to have your subscriptions in your RSS reader, Delicious offers RSS feeds at the bottom of each page, so you can subscribe to particular topics (explore tags or view most popular tags) and users:

• Bookmarks with a particular tag—http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/tag/tag?count=15
• Other users’ bookmarks—http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/username?count=15
• Other users’ bookmarks with specific tags—http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/username/tag?count=15

Your Thoughts on Bookmarking With Delicious

Do you use Delicious social bookmarking or do you have another service you prefer? What other innovative uses for Delicious can you think of for saving and sharing bookmarks? Leave your comments in the box below.

Here is a look inside the new Digg – from the first login to submitting stories, advanced features, best practices and some things to consider.

A look at the login screen for the new Digg.com.

Your First Login

When you first login to the new Digg site, you will see the first evidence that they are trying to get more people to be social with the following two-step process.

Find Profiles to Follow

In Step 1 after you first sign in, you will be given a list of popular profiles on Digg to follow. You can look at all topics or narrow it down to your specific area of interest using the categories in the left sidebar.

Step 1, when you first login, will allow you to browse popular profiles on Digg.

You are able to revisit the popular Digg users in each topic at any time, so you can skip this step for now if you choose.

Find Friends to Follow

In Step 2, you will be asked to connect your Digg account with your Facebook, Twitter and Google accounts to find your friends to follow from those networks who are on Digg.

Step 2 will allow you to connect to your Facebook, Twitter and Google accounts.

You are able to connect to your other accounts any time, so you can skip this step for now if you want to jump right into the new layout.

Your New Home Page

In the previous version of Digg, once you login, you are taken to the latest top news stories. Now, when you login, you will greeted with a Welcome to My News. This area shows the stories recently dugg by the people that you follow on Digg.

View the stories your friends have dugg in My News.

Alternatively, this is where the Find Profiles and Find Friends steps come in handy. If you are not following anyone, you will not have anything in your news when you first login to the new system.

If you are not following anyone, your My News section will be empty.

If you prefer to just see what is popular on the main site versus just among your friends, you can simply switch to the Top News tab.

View most popular stories on new Digg by switching to the Top News section.

Your Profile, Following, and Settings

At the top of the new Digg layout, you can access pertinent information about your Digg account, as well as your settings.

View your followers, following, profile, and settings from the top navigation bar.

Followers vs. Following

To see who is following you versus those you are following, click on the appropriate links underneath the numbers.

View your followers and see who you are following back already.

The unfortunate change in the new Digg system is that you can only see whom you are following (or not) in your followers. There is not a mutual following icon like in the old Digg system, however, so you cannot see if people you are following are following you back.

Profiles

The new Digg profile has changed some, mostly in aesthetics.

The profiles in the new Digg are similar.

You can update your profile under the Settings menu > Profile.

View your followers and see who you are following back already.

You can also add external links to your websites and social media accounts under Settings > Links.

Add external links to your new Digg profile.

Unfortunately, you can no longer enter an instant messenger handle like you could in the old version of Digg. If you want to build Digg connections via IM, you will need to include that information in your bio instead.

Import Feeds

One of the more convenient (and controversial) new features in the new Digg settings is importing a blog feed to your profile.

Import your blog feed to have new posts auto-submitted to Digg.

When you enter a feed URL, you can choose the category to which new posts should be submitted. After installing a verification code on your website to confirm you are the site owner, your latest posts will be automatically submitted to Digg.

It is suggested that you create a specific category; that way, only new posts in that category are auto-submitted. This would be especially useful if your blog covers topics that could fit in different Digg topics, as stories in the right category are likely to get more diggs than ones that are miscategorized.

Personally, I don’t think I’m going to use this option for two reasons. First, if you auto-submit, Digg will choose your post’s thumbnail for you. If you have multiple pictures within a post, it may not select the one you would prefer (not to mention it might pull Gravatar images, social bookmarking icons, etc.). Second, you won’t have the option to modify the title and description to make it more appealing to other diggers.

More Settings

Additional settings that you can configure include:

• Notifications: choose to receive email notifications when you get new followers and Digg announcements.
• Viewing Digg: change specific settings for how you view Digg.
• Connections: see what social networks your Digg account is connected to – if you skipped Step 2 earlier, this is where you go back to it.

Submitting a Story

The new Digg system has made story submission a lot simpler. From the My News or Top News tab, simply enter your URL in the Submit a Link box and click Digg It to get started.

Submit your story on the My News or Top News tabs.

If your URL is already in the system, it will show it to you immediately.

New Digg lets you know if your story is already on Digg.

If not, you will get a simple submission form that allows you to select the thumbnail for the story, edit the title or description and choose a topic to place the story in and Digg It!

Here is your confirmation when you're finished entering a new story.

From here, you can Tweet your story, post it on Facebook, send it by email or add a comment. I would suggest adding a comment, because it makes the story stand out better when it comes up on your followers’ My News tab. Also, the link it shares socially is direct – not to the story’s page on Digg, but to the URL of the story itself.

This is how your new Digg submission is seen by your followers.

Additional Features and Changes

The following are other significant changes and concerns about the new Digg platform.

Finding Profiles and Friends

If you skipped the initial Steps 1 and 2 on your first login, or you want to check your social networks to see if you have new friends on Digg, you can go under your My News tab and Find Profiles.

Find profiles and friends to follow from the My News tab.

By clicking on the sites under My Networks, you can see and follow your friends on Twitter, Google, and Facebook.

Although you can’t message people when you follow them, if they have email notifications turned on, they will be alerted when they follow you. This is why it is important to have a good profile as well as a strong Digg history, as the email links directly to your profile page. This could make the difference between gaining a new follower or not.

The Digg Monster

The Digginstein monster from the Digg email updates.

Reaction to the new version of Digg has not been pretty, to say the least. While those who are more concerned with the ability to see what their friends are doing on Digg are excited to have a little more community, those who enjoyed getting a variety of great stories from the homepage (including their own) are less than impressed with the new system. Posts that make the homepage seem to be only from major publishers like Mashable, Entrepreneur.com, Gizmodo, Techcrunch, and so on.

One of the more amusing reactions was angry Diggers flooding the homepage with Reddit stories. If you look at the most popular stories in the last 30 days, you will see that 22 out of the top 30 stories are all from Reddit.

Reddit stories top Digg

The other eight are from a random sponsored listing (which always comes up in the third spot no matter where you are in the site and changes when you refresh), Read Write Web, Huffington Post, I Can Has Internets, the Oatmeal, I’m a Weird, and imgur.

Upcoming Stories

Another major complaint with the new system was the missing upcoming news area where you could see what stories were not quite homepage ready, but on their way. Fortunately, this was fixed and now you can see the Upcoming stories tab in the main navigation.

Digg adds the upcoming news back onto the navigation.

Power Diggers

So with the My News tab and the new socialization, what does this mean to power diggers? Will the people with the ability (in other words, network) to get stories to the front page, leading to massive swarms of traffic, lose their power? Some say yes.

How did posts get to the homepage of Digg in the previous version? The simplest explanation I have seen is from PostRank Analytics. It is based on the speed at which the story gets dugg – if a submission goes live and then gets hundreds of Diggs within an hour, that is usually going to make it move to the homepage. There are also more lengthy details on getting a story to the front page.

The big questions before this new version was released were 1) whether this will change in the new system and 2) if people logging in are always directed to My News first, will the homepage popularity matter as much? The answers look like they will come from further changes to the new system, as documented on the Digg Update page.

Story Burials

One other function missing in the new Digg is the option to bury a story. Your only options in the new Digg are to report stories as offensive (assuming they are) or use the “x” icon to remove them from your news view. The upside of this is that there will be no more fear of the bury brigade. The downside is you cannot simply get rid of spam (which may get a little crazy with the new Import Feeds features), but you can remove it from your personal viewing.

Your Thoughts on the New Digg

Have you tried out the new Digg? Do you like the new changes that Digg has brought about to improve speed, personalization and diversity of content? Or do you think these changes will hurt the popularity of this news-sharing network? Share your comments in the box below.

Reportedly 70% of Digg’s user base have blogs, which when promoted to popularity are picked up by other bloggers, driving additional traffic. This helps websites attain additional exposure.

Why the New Digg for Your Business?

The new Digg will allow publishers to grow a targeted following much like Twitter, without having to promote content to Digg’s front page. When you submit (or Digg) your content, it will be exposed to your following on their My News page (see below).

When people who follow you “Digg” your content, the story will be posted on the My News page of people who follow them. This will allow for viral exposure as your submission is posted on more My News pages. The submissions with the most votes, or Diggs, will appear on your following’s Top News from People You Follow widget posted on the sidebar of the My News page for added exposure.

The new Digg is similar to Twitter, but aggregates the top news of people you follow on Digg.

The main function of Digg will be to expose news that is supported and enjoyed by people you follow.  Thus, Digg will become a viral marketing engine that facilitates the spread of your content through interested people who wish to support it, like a retweet.

Businesses could reach out to people in their immediate network’s network. Thus the proportion of a business’s following that visits its websites, subscribes to its RSS feeds and email newsletters and buys its products or services can dramatically increase with each submission.

Getting Started

The new Digg gives publishers the ability to open branded accounts that can automatically submit content from an RSS feed. Digg has opened an alpha version of its fourth iteration that will be released in the near future. The social network wants to give publishers a chance to get acclimated to the new interface before its full release. So how do you open and build a publisher account on this alpha version of Digg version 4?

For the time being, Digg is placing new registrations on a waiting list because they’re porting settings from the existing Digg platform to the new Digg.

However, if you’re already on the new Digg network, follow these instructions to build your account and import your website’s RSS feed. Digg representative Erin Ryan emailed me the instructions you should follow to open a publisher account on the new Digg:

1. If you already have a Digg account, but are not on the new Digg, go to Digg.com/new and leave your username and email address. You’ll receive an administrative message notifying you once your account is ready for new Digg access.
2. If you don’t have a Digg account, go to Digg.com/register and enter your email address. You will receive an email address once you can join the new Digg.
3. For all of you who already have access to the new Digg, Digg administration strongly recommends you create a unique RSS feed with your best content prior to submission, so users are not inundated with every update.

Once Digg adds you to the invite list, you can log in New.Digg.com and start tinkering and experimenting with the new platform.

Suggested Profiles

The first screen that loads prompts you to follow suggested news sources picked by Digg. You see suggested users in all topics by default. You could also see suggested users according to their topic of coverage. As on every social platform, it is best to engage with people and brands that share your niche’s focus. Exchanges in communication are points of exposure that will reach out to more people who are interested in the content you produce.

Everything you do on the new Digg does not reflect your Digg account on the old Digg interface, so I’m not saying that you should follow everybody; just experiment until you find the type of activity that works best on this platform. Act like you’re Thomas Edison and the new Digg is a strip of carbon filament.

A number of businesses are already using the new Digg.

You are also directed to a page that allows you to follow people with whom you are acquainted on Facebook, Twitter and/or Google. You click the Connect button beneath the logo of your favorite community, and a list of friends, followers and contacts on either network loads beneath. Click either the Twitter, Google or Facebook button on the left menu to load people from either platform. You could also disconnect Google, Facebook or Twitter from Digg by revoking access to Digg on each of the other digital networks.

The new Digg allows you to easily follow your friends from other social networks.

Your Digg Home Page

Your Digg home page loads all of the submissions Dugg, submitted and commented on by the people you follow. There have been complaints by the more active users in the Digg community that friends’ submissions are not given a unique page. Diggers are proficient at promoting stories to the front page of Digg.com because they vote on each other’s submissions. Such reciprocity is similar to how some of the most successful people on Twitter use the @reply frequently. Each action constitutes a point of exposure that is exponentially amplified as links to each user’s profile are populated with @replies or Diggs.

The new Digg home page.

Top News

From the home page, you can click on the Top News section. The Top News section will be the new Digg Popular section. The Popular section on the old Digg was the home page. The stories that acquire the most votes, or Diggs, are promoted and published on the front page of the Digg platform.

It will be interesting to see if the Top News page maintains its popularity. On the old Digg.com, users didn’t need to click anywhere else to view the most popular stories on the aggregator. On the new Digg, users will have to click another page to view the most popular submissions. Digg aims to distribute the front page’s popularity by directing people to stories that their connections are supporting.

The Top News page on the new Digg.

Settings Page

Time to look under the hood. Click the Settings link in the upper-right corner of the browser window. The Account page will allow you to change the email address associated with the account and your password. Remember the email address should be unique for each account you open. All communication directed at the Digg administration should be sent from this account.

The new Digg Account Settings page.

Your profile allows you to enter your name, gender, location, some information about yourself and your birthday.

The Notifications page allows you to be alerted when you acquire new followers or when there are new Digg announcements. You can also choose to be left out of these communications.

The new Digg Notifications Settings page.

Import Feeds

Pull out some lipstick and a napkin and start taking notes—this will be on your test. You can import your feed by clicking Import Feeds on the left navigation menu. Enter the exact web address of your feed in the field above the Add Feed button. The field is pre-populated with the following characters: “http://”. Triple-click the “http://” and paste your feed’s address into the field.

Import feed to new Digg.

Click the Add Feed button. A code is loaded labeled as “Verify Key.” You should see it beneath a subheading that reads “Manage Feeds.” A paragraph of instructions is also loaded on the right side of the page. The instructions say that you should copy and paste the code into your next post “in the title, body, or hidden in an HTML comment.” Once you have inserted your feed into your new post, click the link that reads “Verify Now.” Digg states that it will take about 4 hours for your feed to be imported.

Feed verification page.

The Viewing Digg page allows you to set the way you view all of the platform’s communication tools. You can filter out profanity by clicking the Enable Profanity Filter checkbox. You can set how external links are opened, whether in a new or the same window. You can also set how you view comments with sort, hide and page size parameters.

New Digg viewing settings.

Your Links section allows you to post links to your external web properties like your blog or digital publication. In the field that reads “List Name”, you type in the name of the site. For search engine optimization purposes, the link has an HTML attribute called rel=”nofollow”. That’s a good indication that the profile will be public and accessible by the search engines and probably populating vanity searches for your name. The attribute is meant for communication with an external search engine.

However, the link will not pass link equity that the search engines gauge when determining which websites are loaded on the front page of their results. Type the URL of your website in the field that reads “e.g. http://external-site.com”; click the Add Link button and your link will load beneath. You have the option of removing the link by clicking the “X” right next to the link beneath the “Manage Links” subheading.

New Digg profile links.

Caveat Emptor

Do not open multiple accounts just to Digg your other accounts’ submissions. Digg has made it clear that it will terminate “serial or overlapping accounts.” Like Twitter, you may want to avoid having multiple accounts covering the same topics. Contact support@digg.com to inquire about management of multiple accounts.

Remember, what happens in alpha Digg stays on alpha Digg; it’s Vegas 2.0. However, whatever actions you perform on Digg senior are recorded on Digg alpha version 4. Thus you could start to publicize your Digg account by posting links with a call to action which reads “Follow me on Digg.” Any friends or fans you attain will become your followers on the new Digg.

However, the new Digg will add vanity URLs to your profiles. So your profile web address will be http://digg.com/[username], as opposed to what it is now, http://digg.com/users/[username]. Stay abreast of other changes to links, APIs controlling your widgets, buttons and feeds for Digg pages, as they have not been ported yet. Digg on!

What do you think about the new Digg?  Will you use it? Leave your comments in the box below.

#1: 50% of Small Businesses Say Lead Generation is Biggest Benefit of Social Networking

According to the “Small Business Marketing Forecast 2010” from Ad-ology, lead generation is the biggest benefit of social networking for U.S. small businesses.

Here’s the breakdown of respondents’ top benefits of social networking:

• 50%: Generating leads
• 45%: Keeping up with the industry
• 44%: Monitoring online conversation
• 38%: Finding vendors/suppliers

This chart shows the level at which the respondents found each social networking benefit useful.

Here’s a surprising statistic: While 67% agreed that social media is a good way to increase business, 39% of those surveyed said they did not plan to use social networking in their marketing plan in 2010.  This number is likely tied to the finding that 31% reported that their customers do not use social media, 29% stated they do not have enough time to devote to it and 21% said they do not know enough about social media.

Although more businesses are beginning to adopt social media strategies into their overall marketing plans, this report suggests businesses still have a long way to go before social media is fully integrated into marketing efforts.

#2: Online Forum Users Are Enthusiastic Brand Advocates

According to a recent survey published by PostRelease, people who actively contribute to online forums are overwhelmingly more engaged in “influential” activities – both online and offline – than people who don’t use forums.

What’s most interesting about these findings is that a forum contributor’s influence far extends past the walls of the forum.  Here are some statistics:

• 79.2% of forum contributors help a friend or family member make a decision about a product purchase – compared with 47.6% of non-contributors and 53.8% overall.
• 65% of forum contributors share advice (offline and in person) based on information that they’ve read online – compared with 35% of non-contributors and 40.8% overall.
• 57.7% of forum contributors proactively recommend someone make a particular purchase – compared with 16.9% of non-contributors and 24.9% overall.

There’s also an interesting correlation between forum users and blogging.  The study found that those who contribute to online forums are 10 times more likely than non-contributors to also publish a blog, and are 9 times more likely to take an active role in organizing an offline event or meeting for a group that originally met online.

For marketers who are looking to connect with the key influencers in their niche, the findings suggest that online forums are a smart place to start; however, marketers should proceed with caution. Justin Choi, founder and president of PostRelease, writes, “Online forums are great places to find enthusiastic consumers and influential brand advocates. The people in forums are often discussing specific products, sharing advice and asking each other for recommendations.  For marketers, participating in that discussion is not quite as simple as jumping into a forum conversation – forums have rules about that.  But there are tools for connecting in a way that’s transparent and relevant.”

Here's a snapshot of the behaviors and habits of people who contribute to forums versus the non-contributors.

#3:  Only 47% of Companies Experimenting With Social Media

A study by Gartner predicts that by the end of 2010, more than 60% of Fortune 1000 companies will manage an online community.  However, another study by ComBlu brings Gartner’s findings into question.

ComBlu’s study, The State of Online Branded Communities, shows how most companies do not understand how to engage within online communities and have no real idea of what their customers want on these sites.  Furthermore, most companies are unaware that people interact on these sites in different ways, so many companies are merely pushing data with little or no interaction.

The report reveals that when companies do get people to join their communities, their lack of engagement is extremely obvious to the sophisticated user.

“Instead of engaging the visitor, the brand drives them away because they offer little of value. Consumers today are sophisticated users of social tools and seek out communities to learn, share and interact. If these elements are missing, or there is no obvious organizing structure that fulfills specific needs, the ‘faux’ community will be quickly abandoned,” stated the report.

Here are some interesting findings related to brands and their online community activity (or lack thereof):

• 47% of brands are still in the experimental phase, meaning they “exhibit lots of social activity with little connection or integration with each other.”
• 24% are community ghost towns, meaning there is no engagement and very few members with no return visitors.
• 20% show a cohesive strategy and typically had robust engagement tools and multiple activities with an active participation from their community.
• 9% show community overload with multiple messages to the same audience, most likely causing confusion and diluting the message.

Perhaps even more important, the study points out that some of the most effective online community best practices were used the least.  Of the 135 communities they examined, only:

• 44 have a community manager. A community manager acts as the face of the community. Without one, there is no cohesive bond between the community sponsors and its members.
• 44 allow social networking. This practice allows community members to connect with each other and find shared interests, thus promoting further connection.
• 35 offer social bookmarking. This best practice gives community members a tool to personalize and aggregate their online experience at the brand’s destination site.

What do you think about these study findings? As always, we want to hear from you. Have you had similar results that support the data above or does your social media experience contradict the findings? Let us know your thoughts in the comment box below!

Yet, how do you pull off “authentic” while maintaining the company brand message?

It’s tough enough for a small business. What if you’re #2 on Business Week‘s best global brands list, with nearly 400,000 employees across 170 countries?

At IBM, it’s about losing control.

“We don’t have a corporate blog or a corporate Twitter ID because we want the ‘IBMers’ in aggregate to be the corporate blog and the corporate Twitter ID,” says Adam Christensen, social media communications at IBM Corporation.

“We represent our brand online the way it always has been, which is employees first. Our brand is largely shaped by the interactions that they have with customers.”

Thousands of IBMers are the voice of the company. Such an approach might be surprising for #14 on the Fortune 500.

Edgy at 114

At 114 years old, IBM seems to be the Madonna of the corporate world, staying relevant from decade to decade. The first company to build a mainframe computer and help NASA land a man on the moon still holds more patents than any other U.S.-based technology company.

As it turns out, its decentralized social media approach is another milestone in the company’s history—driving unprecedented collaboration and innovation.

IBM lets employees talk—to each other and the public—without intervention. With a culture as diverse and distributed as IBM’s, getting employees to collaborate and share makes good business sense.

“We’re very much a knowledge-based company. It’s really the expertise of the employee that we’re hitting on,” Christensen says.

No Policing

IBM does have social media guidelines. The employee-created guidelines basically state that IBMers are individually responsible for what they create and prohibit releasing proprietary information.

But the document lacks any mention of brand messages or values.

Nor does IBM corporate regulate employee social media activity. Only three people hold social media roles at the corporate level, and oversight isn’t part of their jobs.

“We don’t police. The community’s largely self-regulating, and so there hasn’t really been a need to have someone go about and circuit these boards and blogs,” Christensen said. “Employees sort of do that themselves… And that’s worked wonderfully well.”

17,000 Inside Blogs

IBMers use tools such as Twitter and LinkedIn for external activity, but take advantage of mostly IBM tools inside the company. Internally, 100,000 employees have registered on the blogging platform to rate and comment on posts across 17,000 blogs.

In this vibrant forum, employees exchange ideas, advance conversations and do a little self-promotion of their projects.

An internal wiki serves as a hub of information, drawing well over a million page views every day. Additionally, downloads in the company’s user-generated media library now total 11 million.

An IBM tool called Dogear functions like Delicious, a social bookmarking site. Blue Twit mimics Twitter. A tool called SocialBlue acts like Facebook, helping employees stay connected with former colleagues and get to know new ones.

Like Facebook, the 53,000 or so SocialBlue members share photos and status updates. In IBM’s widely dispersed environment, family photos mimic cubicle-decor and dialogue mimics water-cooler interaction.

Thousands of Voices

Run an online search for “IBM blog” and you’ll find countless IBMers posting publicly on everything from service-oriented architecture to sales to parenthood. If you want to blog at IBM, you simply start.

IBM lists all of its blogs in a simple directory sorted by the name of the blogger.

They share thoughts, ideas, presentations, photos, videos, you name it. In 2006, the IBM mainframe blog hit the big time for posting a series of videos on YouTube that linked back to the blog. The Art of the Sale mockumentaries, in The Office style, lightheartedly poke fun at IBM and corporate sales in general.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSqXKp-00hM

Additionally, an estimated 200,000 employees are on LinkedIn, with another 50,000 former employees in alum networks on LinkedIn and Facebook.

The Wisdom of Crowds

Christensen ties IBM’s social media explosion to company “jams.” In 2003, IBM conducted its first jam, not unlike a band jam, bringing employees together in an online forum for three straight days.

“It was a big, online collaborative experiment,” Christensen said. “The first 8 to 10 hours, it was very negative. Over the next 12 hours, the conversation completely changed to being very constructive. By the way, there was no intervention by corporate to say, ‘Hey guys, let’s be more constructive.’ It was completely employee-led.”

“We realized we could trust employees to engage. Employees realized, ‘if we’re within reason, we’re going to be trusted’.”

A couple of months later, IBM opened blogging platforms inside the company.

IBM now includes much bigger and more diverse crowds—as many as 500,000 people in some cases. An innovation jam in 2006 brought together employees—and friends, family and clients—to discuss more than 50 research projects within the company.

From there, they voted on the 10 best, which became incubator businesses that IBM funded with $100 million, all based on “crowd” discussion.

Smarter Planet

A few incubator businesses—intelligent utility systems, smarter transportation systems and electronic health records—were the start of what is now a major IBM movement, Smarter Planet. The initiative puts IBM computing power and problem-solving toward issues like rush-hour traffic or natural disaster response.

It really began as a grassroots movement among employees.

“There are communities that, long before IBM started talking about it, had already congregated online and were talking about these areas. We are very focused on understanding where those communities are and how we can appropriately play with them.”

Christensen himself is one of several authors on the public “Building a Smarter Planet” blog, which highlights ideas and initiatives on the topic, not just within IBM.

Here is a screen shot of the Building a Smarter Planet Blog.

But all the public IBM Smarter Planet discourse is not just about amassing IBMers. Sometimes Smarter Planet projects—which can impact millions—need public support.

“There are communities that are passionate about this, and maybe we can help to amplify some of their voices and really make some of this just happen,” Christensen says. “So social media plays a big role in it.”

The Payoff

IBM invests in creating its own social media tools. But it’s earning that back by monetizing some of those as part of the IBM product portfolio. The other part of the investment equation—employees’ time—doesn’t seem to be a concern, according to Christensen.

That’s because collaboration and knowledge make IBM what it is. And that’s a company with $12.3 billion in earnings on more than $100 billion in revenue with a 44.1% gross profit margin in 2008.

Christensen says to date there’s not an effort to tag a return on investment to its social media efforts.

“I think if you’d ask any senior executive at IBM, ‘How important is it for our employees to be smarter?‘, inherently they understand that these tools can play in helping with that,” Christensen said. “I don’t see myself rarely or ever having that hard conversation on the value of engaging employees in these spaces.”

What do you think about IBM’s social media program? What level of control have you found most effective for your company’s social media efforts? What are your favorite crowd-sourcing tools?  Leave a comment below.