The Red Stapler Chronicles

Imagine that you just finished writing what you think is a pretty good post. You spend some quality time researching your topic. You double and triple check your spelling and grammar. For this post, you even broke open a thesaurus to make sure that you didn’t repeat a single word. After searching around the internet, you find the perfect pictures to compliment your post. You are now ready to hit that publish button on the right side of your screen.

You can now sit back and wait for the hits to roll in, right?? Unless you have thousands of subscribers, the answer to that question is a resounding NO!! Instead, your blogging day does not end until you have submitted your post to a couple of social networking sites.

Before I go any further, I do NOT believe that every post should be submitted to these sites. For example, if your post is aimed at getting referrals to an affiliate program or talks about a blog contest you are entering, you are completely wasting your time submitting your post. In addition, you should understand that some social bookmarking sites center around specific topics. As a result, if the topic of your post is not related to that specific topic, you should not include your post at their site.

Many new bloggers (including me) make the mistake of dreaming too big. They submit their posts to the “big boys” of social bookmarking (StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Furl, etc,) and dream of ending up on the front page and having thousands of hits. Yes, it is nice to dream, but this kind of success is unlikely to happen. For me, the most hits I have ever received from one of these sites is a little over a 100, but the more typical scenario for my blog is gaining one or two hits.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating that you should not submit to the titans of social bookmarking. After all, just like it is fun to play the lottery, it is enjoyable to dream of the day your blog explodes with hits. Instead, I am urging you to look at some lesser known social bookmarking sites that are more likely to help you achieve your blogging goals. Unlike the “big boys” of social bookmarking, these sites actually cater to bloggers. The following are the sites that I use and are listed in no particular order.

1. PF Buzz–is a site that focuses on personal finance (thus the name pf buzz) bloggers. Subcategories include, Business, Career, Credit and Debt, Frugality, Financial Planning, Economy, Investing, Real Estate, Taxes, Insurance, and Making Money. If your post is about any of these above topics and you do not submit it to PF Buzz, than you are a complete idiot (I feel like a fool for not discovering this site sooner). Every time I have included a post on this site, I have got a minimum of twenty hits. In addition, I really enjoy reading and voting for the posts I find interesting. More so than any other site, there seems to be a reciprocal voting system going on (the authors of the posts that you vote for end up reading and voting for your post), so I would advice you to practice your right to vote.

2. Blog Engage–is another great site that has been very good to me. This site does not have a specific subject, so you can feel free to submit most of your posts. The owner of this site, Brian, is very active in the Blog Engage community and has even commented on my blog. In my experiences, Blog Engage has produced the most interesting discussions from a social bookmarking site.

3. Blogsvine and 4. Blogging Zoom–are very similar to Blog Engage and I highly recommend them for the same reasons.

5. Sphinn–is a great site if the topic of your post is internet marketing, SEO, or the computer industry. If not, don’t even bother submitting your site, because they have an army of loyal readers that will instantaneously erase off topic posts.

This post was featured in the 15th Blogging Blog Carnival