Today is a guest Blog post especially written by Linky van der Merwe.

All the DSM-Publishing followers will know that Samantha Milner is an internet marketer who shares her knowledge and experience freely, especially when it comes to the use of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook.  Using the opportunity to do a guest post for her blog, I wanted to ensure that I share something really useful and practical, just like the DSM-Publishing tutorials.

Social Bookmarking as a Social Media Tool

Of all the social media tools available today, social bookmarking has probably been around the longest.  I learned from one of Samantha’s tutorials the value of social bookmarking for your business.

Benefits of Social Bookmarking

I have learned that social bookmarking can give amazing backlinks back to my products and services. It will also increase the number of visitors to my blog. HOW? By submitting all your own blog posts and product sales pages to several social bookmarking sites. Let me share with you 4 social bookmarking tips.

1.     Make Social Bookmarking part of your strategy

In order to use social bookmarking as an effective social media tool, you need to make it part of your social media strategy. If you don’t have a social media strategy, click here for a free strategy template.

2.     Make Social Bookmarking a system

Next you need to develop your own social bookmarking system that you use consistently to produce favorable long term results.

3.     Do Social Bookmarking with Only Wire

Not only can you develop a system for social bookmarking, but you can also automate the whole process with Onlywire.  Onlywire is an automated content and bookmark distribution tool.  With Onlywire you can auto-submit any information to over 30 social networking sites (including your favourite social bookmarking sites) at once. I am a member who pays $2.99 per month for this service. Now that it has become part of my social bookmarking system, I cannot imagine being without this tool again.

4.     Automate Social Bookmarking

Now that you know what automation tool to use, it is time to get started. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Open Mozilla Firefox (works better with Firefox than with Internet Explorer, although you may use IE as well)
2. Go to www.Onlywire.com
3. Signup at Onlywire (the following actions are explained within Onlywire as well)
4. Install Onlywire add-on for Firefox browser
5. Setup accounts with each website (social networking services) you wish to utilize
6. Enter username and password for all social bookmarking/ social networking websites you want to utilize, with a short profile description.
7. Once logins are stored with Onlywire you can begin submitting content.
8. Add the Bookmark & Share Button to your website. If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog with plugin support, download the OnlyWire plugin from WordPress.org.  Alternatively install it from your WordPress Dashboard.  At the end of each blog post, the Bookmark & Share Button will appear. For older blog posts, use this button on your own website to distribute the content automatically to multiple social networking sites.
9. For new blog posts, you will see a tick box appear in the Dashboard view, new Post  that you need to select before you publish. When the blog post is published, it will automatically be published by the Onlywire plugin to all the social networking sites that you have selected to utilize.
10. It is good practice to visit your Onlywire account after submission to verify the success or failure of submissions to social bookmarking sites. Some social networks require a final step, called Finalisation, before the content is published.

Outsource Social Bookmarking

I am the first one to admit that setting up a Social Bookmarking systems and then automating it can be a very lengthy process.  However the benefits will outweigh the time and effort spent by far!

If you are a business owner or service professional who wants to put a social bookmarking system in place, I recommend that you implement these 4 tips and the 10 steps to automate social bookmarking and make it work for your business.  Alternatively, you can outsource the effort to put the automated system in place and continue with bookmarking all your new blog posts.

Linky van der Merwe is an expert project management consultant and is the Founder of Virtual Project Consulting. It is a company that provides Project Management and Social Media Solutions to small business owners and service professionals.

Thanks for reading all about our make money blogging adventures. We look forward to showing you fantastic ways of creating income streams in your plan to make money online.

Internet marketing needs to be fun and provide you with useful ways to make money online without it breaking the bank.

To your online success

Samantha and Linky

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