Social bookmarking tips from fellow HotaruCMS users

[louis]

Hi, my name is Louis and I’m a social bookmarking site administrator n00b. It’s been 1 day since I’ve worked on my Hotaru site…

As I continue working on my social bookmarking site I was wondering a few things. So what better place to ask for some tips but here? Here goes. Do you link directly to the source or use the default Hotaru method? I like the way japansoc.com has the links setup and leaning toward this setup.

...And you knew I was going to ask: How do you get people to signup and join in? I know this is the most difficult part of any web site, but I can always use a tip here and there. At the moment its just me and some friends I’ve asked to help get the ball rolling to start. while I tidy things up.

Would like to read what others have done, and currently doing with their sites.

[carlo75]

Hi Louis, this is my showcase:
I've some Social Bookmarking based on Pligg (unfortunately) I planning to start a new site based on Hotaru asap.

When I launch a new site, I made a new user dedicated for promoting, and I start to write about interesting news found on internet: Digg home page, Google News or some niche arguments, adding more values, opinions and more information [I search little/medium blog with quality similar news not original, that need traffic to grow]

I do a trackback at the article/news source, and the I promote my site news via other social network trying to direct the more traffic as possible... this way generate traffic also on the article owner and cross fingers that this one begin to use my new social site.

[Nick]

Always an interesting topic. Hope you don't mind if I repost a previous answer.

I targeted bloggers because bloggers are keen to get more traffic and will therefore submit their own content. Here's a 5 point plan you might try:

1. Find a blogger in your niche and post one of his articles to your site
2. Post a comment on the post page asking a question about the article
3. Post a comment on the original article to let him know you like it and have submitted it to X bookmarking site
4. When he visits your site, he will see the question you posted and feel compelled to register so he can answer it!
5. Drive as much traffic as you can to the post page using Twitter, Facebook, etc. so people click through to his site with you as the referrer. If he checks his logs and sees traffic from your site, he'll want to keep using it.

Repeat everyday for about four months (as was my case) and then the site should grow by itself.

Also, in my FAQ, I have this:

Can I submit my own posts?

Unlike many social bookmarking services, JapanSoc encourages bloggers to submit their own articles to share with other users. However, please note this clause from the Terms of Service:

In connection with your Contents, you agree that you will not:
…
(g.) abuse the privilege to submit links to your own content, e.g. multiple, back-to-back submissions from your blog, submitting the same content from multiple sources, or re-submitting the same story multiple times;

Sensible usage: For every article you submit from your own blog, submit one from another site, too.

That's important, otherwise you'll just get the same few bloggers posting nothing but their own articles all the time, and your site will become boring very quickly.

From here.

[louis]

Hi Louis, this is my showcase:
I've some Social Bookmarking based on Pligg (unfortunately) I planning to start a new site based on Hotaru asap.

When I launch a new site, I made a new user dedicated for promoting, and I start to write about interesting news found on internet: Digg home page, Google News or some niche arguments, adding more values, opinions and more information [I search little/medium blog with quality similar news not original, that need traffic to grow]

I do a trackback at the article/news source, and the I promote my site news via other social network trying to direct the more traffic as possible... this way generate traffic also on the article owner and cross fingers that this one begin to use my new social site.

@Carlo75, thanks for the tips. I like'em esp. the trackbacks method. As I learn more about Hotaru CMS and how it works I will certainly test the waters. I was tinkering with Pligg as well, but glad I found this CMS.

@nick that's some good stuff you reposted. I see I have my work cut out for me and much to learn.

[nothingman]

Hi Louis,
1. Be a regular at other blogs/social news sites that you are targeting your audience with.
2. Build a fan-base or make friends on those sites by being regular/active (Yes, being popular is the tough part, just be a nice guy - that really helps)
3. After you are popular enough, launch your site and 'request' users you have made friends with to take a look, sign-up, and motivate them to contribute. There are always a bunch of users who happen to be disgruntled with a site - target and tell those users too about your site

That's my story. I have been a regular on many sites of our community and well, made a lot of friends via the forums on those sites. I finally decided to go on my own and considering how small our community is (it might be one of the smallest states in India), the site now has an Alexa country ranking of 5,960 in India - not very high, but I'm happy

I launched my site in 2006 and in the beginning I was the only one who posted the stories. Then some of the other members started posting, who told others that XYZ's site is fun etc etc. Making the site fun by being friendly with the funny/whacky ones is also another tip I can share.

[louis]

Hi Louis,
1. Be a regular at other blogs/social news sites that you are targeting your audience with.
2. Build a fan-base or make friends on those sites by being regular/active (Yes, being popular is the tough part, just be a nice guy - that really helps)


I launched my site in 2006 and in the beginning I was the only one who posted the stories. Then some of the other members started posting, who told others that XYZ's site is fun etc etc. Making the site fun by being friendly with the funny/whacky ones is also another tip I can share.

Hey nothingman,

I’ll admit I’ve been out of the loop online for quite some time. The Web2.0 craze was just too over-done at one point for me. However, in the Web 1.0 world I was active in forums (tried to run my own Vbulletin techie forum), teaching myself HTML & design, and had a personal “static” blog before they were called “blogs.” But I digress. It’s nice to that some thing’s as you mentioned above haven’t changed. Being a regular, trying to contribute and help others, and being more “social” is key. Right now I’m posting items and have my brother and friends occasionally helping out adding items of interest and humor in the niche topic.

I will certainly take some pointers here and apply them. As I try to get back into the swing of things. I figured why not have some fun (building a social bookmarking site using Hotaru), learn some new things (more XHTML, CSS, PHP), and see how things go.

[thatgirlisfunny]

Hi Louis,
Thanks for asking these questions. I'm traveling down the same path and wondering about the same things. I'm looking forward to waking up and finding new links contributed from people I haven't met before. Right now, it feels like a trickle, but soon I'm certain that people will create leaving post links on TGIF Links as a regular, daily habit.

[epoch]

I do a trackback at the article/news source, and the I promote my site news via other social network trying to direct the more traffic as possible... this way generate traffic also on the article owner and cross fingers that this one begin to use my new social site.

Thats my way. There is one such Indian site entirely popularised on this logic http://humsurfer.com, the site aggregated my feed it was driving huge traffic at one point I signed up and started posting.
Now every minute humsurfer has 100s of user submitted posts.

[carlo75]

Hi epoch,
this is gourgeous way, but a similar traffic need huge server resources... actually I need to porting my pligg site to hotarucms, but some problems to characters import delay this job... I'm considering to restart again with the same domain... i'm still elaborating a response

[epoch]

this may be a little off topic but worth sharing as this is regarding bookmarking...
an advice from experience..
my site gilma.in was ranked 15XXX worldwide and 1xxx in India per Alexa. My bad I posted a link to illegal mp3, it was bringing huge traffic 30000+views/day but someone reported to adsense then the domain was blacklisted. So I redirected to a new domain for adsense but it didnt do well and still I cannot put the same effort to bring the site up.
I switched from shared > VPS > DEDI now DEDI > shared
2 mistakes > illegal posting and ditching the domain