The first thing you will need to do to get started with social bookmarking is to decide on a social bookmarking website. There are many choices, from Del.icio.us, one of the oldest and most popular sites, to Blinklist, an excellent choice for beginners, to Ma.gnolia, which specializes in community-building features.
Most social bookmarking sites allow you to search through the public bookmarks as a guest. The best way to find out which one is right for you is to actually use the site. Search through the bookmarks, see if the look-and-feel appeals to you, and determine whether or not you find the site easy to use.
Once you have picked a social bookmarking site, you will want to install a button onto your browser to make it easy to use. This is usually a quick and painless operation, so don't panic! The site should provide a tutorial on installing the button either after you sign up or in their help section.
Social Bookmarking, Tagging, and Tag Clouds
Once you have your account set up and have the button installed, you are ready to go onto the world wide web and start bookmarking websites. You've got your handy button, so this is an easy process. Simply go to whatever website you want to bookmark, and click the button.
Uh-oh. It asked you a question, didn't it? Most sites will either pop up a small window or take you to their site and ask you a few questions about the website you are bookmarking. It should fill out some of the information for you, like the title and the website address.
The main thing you want to be concerned with is the tag. A tag is a keyword or phrase used to describe the website. Think of it like the name of a folder. You can also have multiple tags, which can be very handy.
For example, if you are on a blog about video games, you might tag the blog with the keywords "games" and "blog". If you are on a blog about football, you might tag it with "football" and "blog". If you are on the Dallas Cowboys website, you might tag it "football" and "cowboys".
Now, because we used multiple tags, we can find the bookmarks multiple ways. If you always tag your favorite blogs with the tag of "blog", you can pull up all of your blogs by just typing in that keyword. Using the example above, we can bring up the games blog and the football blog by typing in "blog", or we could bring up the football blog and the Dallas Cowboys website by typing in "football".
Depending on the social bookmarking site, you might also have a "tag cloud". A tag cloud is a list of tags with the most popular tags receiving a bigger and/or bolder font than tags not as popular. Tag clouds let you quickly pick out your most popular bookmarks.
