Today I continue with my series on Social Media Tools with a basic introduction to Social News and Social Bookmarking.

Social News and Bookmarking 101:: Simple Definition

Social bookmarking allows web users to save, organize and share their bookmarks of web pages on the Internet (vs. their own computers — as many do with their Microsoft Explorer Favorites). Social news sites allow users to submit web pages and articles and have other users vote on them with the # of votes determining which articles are presented on the social news site.

Social News and Bookmarking 101:: Learn the Basics

Social bookmarking and social news offer companies additional ways to promote their websites and web pages (we’ll look at advice for doing this in later posts). But for now, to get a basic understanding of Social Bookmarking and Social News, here are some resources:

• Read these articles:
  • Wikipedia’s entry on Social Bookmarking and Social News
  • Wikipedia’s entry on Social Bookmarking Tools
  • About.com’s article “Social Bookmarking 101” and “What is Social News?”
  • DoshDosh’s “A Beginners Guide to Social News Websites“
• Visit and take a look at these Social Bookmarking and Social news sites:
  • Delicious.com
  • Digg.com
  • Stumbleupon.com
  • Reddit
• Take a look at our Social Bookmarks on Delicious
• Watch this video “Social Bookmarking in Plain English” from Common Craft:

For earlier parts of this series:

» Essential Social Media Tools: Part 1: Blogs
» Essential Social Media Tools: Part 2: Microblogging
» Essential Social Media Tools: Part 3: RSS
» Essential Social Media Tools: Part 4: Photo Sharing
» Essential Social Media Tools: Part 5: Podcasts

In my next post in this series “Essential Social Media Tools – What You Need to Know”, I’ll provide an overview of Social Networking.