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What Is Social Bookmarking? A Complete Guide

By Stephen Carter

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Reviewed by: Stephen Carter

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What Is Social Bookmarking A Complete Guide

We often come into contact with several websites and contents while surfing through the internet. While many of the contents online are disposable, you may need to take your sweet time with some.

For example, you may need to bookmark the websites as a reference for your project, to study a complex topic, or to learn more about the updates in the industry you are working in. 

Bookmarking allows users to save a webpage they want to revisit in the future. But, since your browser might have numerous other bookmarked sites for various purposes, it may get lost in the mix. This is where Social Bookmarking comes in.

Here, you use an online service to add, edit, and share bookmarks of a webpage you are interested in. By doing this, you can better organize your bookmarks and access them from anywhere by using any device connected to the internet. 

So, you can consider, social bookmarking services as a social media platform for bookmarks. It serves several purposes, and it is something you might need to take a closer look into, due to various purposes. In this article, we will dive into the fabulous world of social bookmarking and learn some of the best social bookmarking sites, and more. 

What are Social Bookmarking Sites?

Social Bookmarking

As mentioned above, social bookmarking is the process of tagging a webpage, social media posts, or text into a platform that you can revisit. This process eliminates the need for downloading each content that you deem important for future use.

It also offers better organization of the data you need. The websites that allow social bookmarking are called social bookmarking sites. Some of the popular services include Pinterest and Reddit. 

Social bookmarking sites work by allowing the users to follow specific rooms, or threads that the users are interested in. Usually, anyone can create a topic and let others join in and share their thoughts.

However, in some cases, the users may need admin privileges to create new threads. So, for instance, if you are into photography, you can easily find more than a hundred photography-related rooms. Either join in on any of them or create one of your own. 

What is the Importance of Social Bookmarking?

Of course, the obvious answer is that it allows you to organize what you want and what you don’t want in an easily accessible way. Additionally, social bookmarking apps allow you to share your discoveries and opinions with other like-minded people, resulting in building a strong universal space for exchanging knowledge. 

If you are a content creator, social bookmarking sites can help you by showing what topics people are interested in. This feature can also be useful for social media marketing companies.

You can follow specific threads that can be helpful for the brands you manage. It also allows you to easily find what potential customers are interested in. 

So, using social media bookmarking sites can be useful for individuals, working professionals, businesses, social media managers, and even students. 

How to Use Social Bookmarking Sites Effectively?

Social Bookmarking sites can serve as a highly effective tool in building your social media presence. But you should know how to use them effectively. Here are some of the tried and tested ways of using social bookmarking sites for expanding visibility, traffic, and overall exposure: 

  • Keep track of the trending page and post blogs and social media posts related to the trending topics (only if the topic aligns with your brand). 
  • Follow topics related to your industry and monitor what the customers are talking about. This allows you to make a radical difference in your approach.
  • Discover high-domain authority websites that can be used as backlinks on your websites. 
  • Find potential influencers and social media personalities and collaborate with them to expand the reach of your business. 
  • Stay away from posting direct advertisements on social bookmarking communities which can turn off potential customers. 

While social media bookmarking sites can be used to expand the reach of your business, your primary focus should be on providing informative and engaging content for the target audience. If you become too preachy, your business can seem off-putting to the customers. 

Now you know what social bookmarking sites are, and how to use them effectively. So, shall we explore some of the best social bookmarking sites available today? Well, here are our top picks. 

Top Social Bookmarking Sites in 2024

Social bookmarking sites have been with us for decades now. We have tried some of the most popular social bookmarking sites to let you know our top picks for this year. Read on to find out what they are: 

SlWebsiteMonthly VisitsGlobal Rank
1reddit.com3.382B11
2twitter.com1.166B25
3pinterest.com849.9M34
4medium.com137.5M384
5getpocket.com7.527M9,681
6scoop.it4.697M16,278
7digg.com3.460M23,217
8slashdot.org3.319M25,618
9diigo.com665,182.0076,140
10mix.com531,956.0094,817

1. Reddit 

Reddit 

With more than 3 billion monthly visitors, it is safe to say that Reddit is the most popular social bookmarking site on the internet. Due to the platform’s liberal censorship and huge user base, Reddit has become ‘the’ destination for online discussions and content-sharing sites. 

The posts are created on boards called “subreddits” which are organized by the subject they discuss. This makes it easy for people to find what they are looking for. The posts can be plain texts, links, or media such as videos, gifs, and photos. 

Marketing through Reddit can be extremely effective, but you should be smart about it. Present what you are trying to sell, in an unassuming way, and try not to overdo promotional content. 

2. X (formerly known as Twitter)

X (formerly known as Twitter)

X is not a platform that would be traditionally considered a social bookmarking site, it is more of a social media platform. However, Twitter offers an array of useful features such as tagging, creating threads, and following threads that make it one of the best social bookmarking sites. 

This social media platform helps you to like and comment on certain tweets, and follow hashtags. By doing these engagements you are bookmarking those topics and you can revisit them later. 

The X platform also opens up several opportunities for you to collaborate with other users on the platform. You can take part in the discussions to share knowledge, and even to criticize or correct someone’s knowledge. 

3. Pinterest 

Pinterest 

On the Pinterest platform, it is all about pinning the content you are interested in. Once you have pinned content you can come back to it in the future. People use the platform for various purposes including planning their weddings, remodeling their home and interiors, furnishing, fashion choices, and more. 

According to a survey over 80% of the Pinterest audience is women. On the platform, it is all about how you are presenting your content. It is about the looks and aesthetic values. The best businesses that need to use Pinterest are furnishing, wedding decor, interior design, fashion design, graphic design, etc. 

4. Medium 

Medium 

Medium is a free online publishing platform for all kinds of ideas and stories. If you find an interesting topic on the medium, you can simply save it and come back to it later, making it one of the best social bookmarking sites. 

For organizations, Medium serves as a great way to post updates, and new releases, and engage with customers. If a reader likes what you offer, they will save the post, or add it to their favorites. The platform also lets users follow the creators. Meaning that if you do it right, you can create a good enough audience members from Medium. 

5. Pocket 

Pocket 

Pocket allows users to bookmark a web page to remote servers. It allows you to come back to the web pages you have bookmarked even if you are using a different device. The platform helps users read the article even offline by syncing the devices. additionally, it also can unclutter the articles you bookmark, to make it more easy to read. 

There are paid and free versions of Pocket available. The paid version of course has several extra features such as annotation, highlighting, and adding notes. One of the other notable features of Pocket is its ability to let you start from exactly where you left off. 

6. Scoop.it

Scoop.it

Scoop.it is a social bookmarking platform that allows users to create journals on specific topics. Other users will be able to discover it and curate it if they are interested. The platform also allows users to segregate their curated journals based on the nature of the topics.

The platform also allows users to publish their creations directly to their WordPress website. This unique ability of the platform attracts more users to the platform. It is also notable that you can share the articles privately with other team members. 

7. Digg 

Digg 

Digg is a platform that has gone through several transformations over the years, to become what we see today. The platform is a content curator that aggregates several content sources on the internet, to give you the most trending and compelling stories. Unlike Reddit or Twitter, on the Digg platform, the editors pick the stories, making them more uncluttered and to the point. 

In addition to the content creation, it is also a good social bookmarking website. Here, you can save a story that you find compelling and organize it in the way you want. It also allows you to share the stories you find through the internet. 

8. Slashdot 

Slashdot 

Slashdot is an online platform that focuses on providing users with news stories and reports on current events. The platform hosts a wide range of content from various industries including entertainment, science, technology, politics, internal and external affairs, etc. Each story hosted on Slashdot is tagged depending on the nature of the story. So, you can find what you are interested in by following the tags. 

9. Diigo 

Diigo 

Diigo is a platform that allows signed-in users to bookmark and tag web pages they want to visit again. The users can highlight any part of the website they want and attach notes to better organize what they are reading. You can either keep the annotations private for yourself or share them with other groups in Diigo. 

10. Mix 

Mix 

The home page of Mix welcomes you with a tagline that says “Expand your mind”, and it is exactly what they aim to do. The application enables you to discover engaging and informative content online.

The content you see on the platform varies according to your interests. Choose between popular interests such as travel pop culture, and many more.

One of the best features that Mix offers is its ability to show what your colleagues have saved. You can allow the site to make it visible on other’s timelines, making way for effective collaboration with your teammates. 

Conclusion 

Social Bookmarking is the process of bookmarking a post, blog, journal, story, or any digital content to revisit later. There are several social bookmarking sites on the internet, and they all differ in the features offered.  In this article, we have seen the 10 most popular social bookmarking sites. 

By using social bookmarking sites, you can access your bookmarks on all the devices you use. Some even allow users to continue reading the bookmarked content from where they left off. 

Additionally, social bookmarking is a great way to get your business to the public. It can help grow your visibility in this competitive market. But you should be smart with your marketing tactics, and not come off as too preachy.

Stephen Carter

Stephen Carter is a software technology expert. He writes about market research on various hot topics like cryptocurrencies, explaining how they started. He's good at making complicated tech ideas easy to understand for everyone.

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