If you don’t yet know what social bookmarking is, you’re missing out on a powerful tool for networking with others online. Think this doesn’t apply to you? Social bookmarking is more than just a way to make some Internet friends and pass some time. It’s the way that websites are getting noticed today which means that it’s the way that your online business or blog makes money. No matter how big or small your website is, social bookmarking can increase the traffic to that site and get people interested in whatever it is that you’re doing. And if you don’t know how to do it, you’re going to get left behind because in the world of Web 2.0, social bookmarking is the common language that everyone is speaking.

But let’s get down to the basics. Social bookmarking takes place inside of particular websites. You join them as a user under whatever name you’d like and you can create a profile there. It sounds a little bit like MySpace or Facebook which is why many people think that they’re just a fun social tool. But true social bookmarking sites are different because they let each user archive information about their favorite web pages. You can create lists of information about where to find your favorite books, read your favorite blogs, or find your favorite locations on a city map.

Other users on the site can access this information, searching it through various methods including topics and tags which you create. So, you might create a whole series of information that you tag with “music” and then users of the social bookmarking site can sort your information by that tag and find all of what you’ve posted under it. This might still sound like a thing for high school kids to do when they’re bored, but it’s actually a powerful tool for directing traffic to certain sites.

What happens is that certain users on any social bookmarking site gain a lot of credibility on the site. This is usually because they post frequently, update their bookmarks regularly and provide people with content that is of interest. People on the site start paying attention to the suggestions made by this powerful user. And they lead their friends and other contacts to what this user is doing, increasing the power of that person’s suggestion. Because of this, you can use social bookmarking skills to gain credibility on the site and then direct people to the things that you want them to site – like your website or blog.

When it comes down to it, social bookmarking is the voice of the masses. This is one of the key characteristics of the Web 2.0 world in which users are generating and directing the content on Internet sites. Anyone with a profile on a social bookmarking site can have some input into what sites people are visiting on the World Wide Web. At a very basic level, social bookmarking can direct you to some interesting and useful information. But at a more complex level, it can be a tool that you use on a regular basis to improve your business and influence the people who use that site.