My favorite social media tool is social bookmarking service Delicious. I’ve always been an avid researcher and Delicious allows me to discover, save, organize and share information that I find online like no other service. It’s the engine of many of the blog posts I put together.
Delicious is an especially good tool for marketers. Not only are is it an excellent tool for research and data mining, but it can also be a great vehicle for driving website traffic- articles that make it to the popular page(s) of Delicious can deliver large amounts of traffic to a website.
The bookmarking feature of Delicious when compared to social news sites such as Digg and Stumbleupon can also lead to a steadier flow of traffic and repeat traffic over time as people return to pages they have bookmarked on Delicious.
In this post, I’ve pulled together a very comprehensive collection of tutorials, advice, resources, tips and tools to help you use Delicious to enhance your marketing, research and other business objectives. There’s a special section just for marketers.
You can visit my Delicious account and join my network on Delicious to tap into my social bookmarking activity. If you like this post, be sure to bookmark it on Delicious!
Basic Tutorials and Introductions
For a very basic introduction to social bookmarking, visit our post: Essential Social Media Tools: Social News & Bookmarking.
- Six Reasons to Use Del.icio.us
From PR Perspective: Quick rundown on the benefits of using Delicious.
- What is Del.icio.us?
From Clickable Culture: Quick Primer explaining what Delicious is and how it works.
- » Us.ef.ull: Beginners Guide to Delicious
From Beelerspace: Introductory Guide with simple steps to follow.
- How to Use Del.icio.us
From Ogilvy Public Relations: Overview that provides basic instructions for using Delicious
- Simply Del.icio.us Online Social Bookmarking, or: Tagging for Teaching
From David Muir: Comprehensive tutorial on using Delicious.
- Teacher Tube Videos
Key Site Features and Anatomy
- Importing Your Browser Bookmarks into Delicious
If you have bookmarks stored in your browser, you can use this tool to transfer a copy of them into Delicious. Then, you’ll be able to access those bookmarks from any computer connected to the internet and share them with your friends and other people.
- Saving Bookmarks with Bookmarklets on Delicious
A quick tool for putting a button on your browser’s Toolbar, bookmarklets offer an easy way to post and view your bookmarks on Delicious. Available for Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Chrome and Opera. There are also more extensive browser Add-ons – the Internet Explorer Add-On and the Firefox Add-On that can be downloaded to enable quick and easy bookmarking.
- Searching on Delicious
Official help section on Delicious with overview of how to search for information on the site including advanced search options and the ability to search your network’s bookmarks.
- Finding Popular Bookmarks on Delicious
Real time rundown of the most popular bookmarks on Delicious. You can also search for the most popular bookmarks by tags listed in the right column of this page.
- Using Delicious Tags to Organize and Find Information
Tags are one-word descriptors that you can assign to your bookmarks on Delicious to help you organize and remember them. This help page provides a simple overview of the tagging feature and explains how to add tags, view tags, bundle tags and more.
- Using the Delicious Network, Subscriptions and In-Box Functions
Delicious help section that explains how to use the Network and subscriptions function in Delicious. What’s your network, how to add and remove people to your network., what are subscriptions and more.
- Delicious RSS Feeds
For most pages within Delicious, there are associated RSS feeds for bookmarks that you can use in news readers, blogs, or your own third-party applications. This is a powerful feature that allows you to get RSS feeds for specific tags, specific users, and specific tags from specific users.
- Looking up URLs on Delicious
Lets you type in a url and see what people have saved from that URL
- Creative Commons on Delicious
Put a Creative Commons or public domain license on your bookmark’s RSS feeds.
- Delicious to go
Information about mobile version of Delicious.
- Delicious Blog – Get Tips and Resources
Official blog of Delicious with tips and resources to enhance your usage of the service. You can sign up for the RSS feed.
Specifically for Marketers
- Keys to Developing Bookmarkable Content
From Traffikd: Advice on creating content that will be bookmarked, particularly on Delicious.
- Tagging: Keeping Tabs On The Net
From Business Week: A little old but still a useful (and brief) article on how some businesses have used Delicious and it’s tagging feature to their advantage.
- Introducing Delicious Tag Mining for Brand Research:
From Ignite Social Media: A nice example of how to use delicious tags to conduct brand research.
- 3 Tips for Marketing More Effectively With Del.icio.us | Traffikd
From Taffickd: For marketer using Delicious for traffic, inbound links and exposure, here are 3 specific tips for increasing the effectiveness of your efforts.
- Marketers Guide to Del.icio.us
From Traffikd: Advice on using Delicious for traffic, links, and exposure.
- How to Get Targeted Traffic Using Delicious
From Mark Flavin’s Internet Marketing Blog: 2 part video series that will show you how to set up a Del.Icio.Us account & how to use Del.Icio.Us to drive targeted traffic to your website or blog. Enjoy!
- 10 Tips for Making Your Blog Posts More del.icio.us
From Vandelay Website Design: Steps to take to encourage users to save and share your articles on the social bookmarking site Delicious in order to drive website traffic – including how you craft the content itself.
- Four Effective Ways to Get Listed on the del.icio.us Popular Pages
From DoshDosh: The aim of this article is to examine how you can get your content listed as popular items in del.icio.us, which will ultimately send a massive amount of visitors to your blog.
- Purpose-Built del.icio.us Pages Explained
From Social Media Power: How you can use purpose-built delicious pages to enhance your online business goals.
- Using del.icio.us for Thought Leadership
From PR Squared: Advice on using Delicious for marketing and PR purposes. Includes the idea of “purpose-built” delicious pages which can be leveraged for content on your blog.
- Using Delicious for Marketing Research
From Web Strategy by Jeremiah: Advice on using Delicious for market research such as finding out how people think about things and helping to develop search marketing strategies.
- How to Analyze your Site with Del.icio.us
From Ann Smarty: Social bookmarking is not only a nice way to get more traffic and links. It’s also an effective method to explore what people think about your site by tracking your content popularity.
- How To Track When Delicious Users Bookmark Your Site
From Webmonkey: Instructions for keeping track of how many Delicious users bookmark your site and what type of tags they use.
- Del.icio.us: An Underrated Link Building Tool
From Vandelay Design Blog: Discussion of why and how Delicious can be a powerful tool for driving traffic and building links to your website or blog.
Advice and Tips
- The Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users
From Slacker Manager: Helpful advice for making the most of Delicious.
- How To Use Del.icio.us To Take Over the World
From Mike Stopforth: Good article on how to use the people or networking component of Delicious to get the most out of the service.
- Practical 101s: Social Bookmarking With Delicious
From davefleet.com: Great introduction and advice on using the Delicious social bookmarking site. Also from Dave, read 6 Ways To Make Life Easier With Del.icio.us.
- Become a Del.icio.us Power User
From Web Worker Daily: Very tips to make the most of the social bookmarking application.
- Using Tags Effectively in Del.icio.us
From Technorants: Guidelines on how to use the Delicious tagging feature most effectively.
- Delicious Search Tips From Lifehack: The power of del.icio.us comes in the form of it’s social component. Via the Delicious community, you can find some of the best resources on the Internet minus the junk. It also gives you a way to save and organize the information you find. Many people aren’t aware of the service’s full range of features and valuable add-ons. This article reviews 10 ways that you can use del.icio.us to its full potential
- How to be More Productive and Organize Your Delicious Bookmarks
From The Blog Herald: Five easy steps to getting yourself organized online from Organizing your Delicious bookmarks to unsubscribing from unnecessary emails.
- 15 Things I Learned from Delicious
From Micro Persuasion: Steve Rubel shares some nifty tips for data mining on Delicous including a nifty bookmarklet that lets you see the bookmarks for the url of any page you’re viewing in your browser.
- Be Careful What You Save – Delicious Tips
From Dave Fleet: Advice on sharing (and not sharing) when saving articles to Delicious.
- Delicious Hack: How to send messages via Delicious
From Marketallica: Innovative method for using Delicious to send messages to people you want to connect to.
- 10 Interesting People You Should Have In Your Delicious Network
From MMMeega: As it states, a list of interesting people to add to your Delicious network.
- Networking with Del.icio.us
Nice screencast from educator Liz Davis that demonstrates the power of connecting with other people through the Delicious networking function. Useful even for even non-educators. - Tagging Strategies For Successful Social Bookmarking
From Social Media Explorer: Tips on how to use tagging more effectively with social bookmarking service Delicious.
- 8 Tips for Better del.icio.us Bookmarking
From Web Worker Daily: Advice to help you be a better bookmarker with del.icio.us.
- Tag your way to del.icio.us domination | Social Signal
- How to Use del.icio.us Like a Pro
From Mahalo.com: Comprehensive guide to using social bookmarking site Delicious.
- What are Purpose-Built del.icio.us Pages, and How are They Used?
From Social Media Power: Introduces the concept of purpose-built Delicious page and talks about how you can integrate them into your social media content and marketing strategies.
- How to Get More Bookmarks and Better Links
From Chris Garrett: Excellent advice on getting more people to bookmark your articles.
Tools
- Official Delicious Tools
- Delicious Bookmarking, Badges and other Tools
Bookmarking buttons and add-ons for your browser or website- Browser buttons for saving bookmarks, tools to add your bookmarks and tags to your website or blog, Delicious badges for your blog or website.
- Facebook Application on Delicious
Add the Delicious application to your Facebook account and publish information about your bookmarks to your Facebook profile.
- Tagometer on Delicious
With our JSON powered Tagometer Badge, you can add some flair to your site. With this badge, it’s easy to show both tags and number of saves, so it’s easy to show visitors how interesting you are.
- Tagrolls on Delicious
Tagrolls are a way for you to display your Delicious tags as part of your website. First play with the settings below then simply insert this HTML code into the hypertext of your page:
- Network Badges on Delicious
Network Badges allow you to display details about your Delicious network as part of your website. First play with the settings. Then simply insert the HTML code you’re given into the hypertext of your page.
- Linkrolls on Delicious
Linkrolls are a way for you to have your latest Delicious bookmarks displayed as part of your website. First play with the settings below then simply insert this HTML code into the hypertext of your page:
- Delicious Bookmarking, Badges and other Tools
- Absolutely Delicious Tools Collection From Quick Online Tips: Regularly updated list of the best Delicious tools and services on the web (includes 3rd party tools beyond the official tools that Delicious offers).
- Third Party Tools on Delicious
List of third party tools for Delicious provided by Delicious itself.
- Delicious Toolbox: 80+ Updated Tools and Resources
From Mashable: Here are over 80 tools for everything from your mobile device to your blog, and more, that can help you view your bookmarks in new and unique ways, backup your bookmarks in a secure location, take your bookmarks with you on the go, blog about your most recent saves, and then some.
- How to Organize Your Web With Delicious – The Essential Toolbox
From Makeuseof.com: Discussion of a set of tools that can help you be more productive by making the most of Delicious bookmarks.
- Five Great Delicious Hacks, in Five Minutes, for Delicious’s 5th Birthday – ReadWriteWeb
How-to video reviewing five of ways to use the Firefox plug-in Greasemonkey and associated userscripts to radically change your Delicious experience. With just a handful of clicks you can integrate Delicious into sites like Google Reader and Digg, you can sort and view Delicious in brand new ways, and make a number of other changes. For more on the Greasemonkey extention and users scripts see: How to Start Using Greasemonkey in Under 5 Minutes from ReadWriteWeb.
- 15 Useful Greasemonkey Scripts for Del.icio.us Users
From Killer Techtips: This is a list of about 15 Greasemonkey scripts for Del.icio.us. Some of these add functional enhancements. Others add interface enhancements and some others integrate other services like Ma.gnolia with Del.icio.us. Requires the Firefox browser and the Greasemonkey extension.
- Specific 3rd Party Tools of Note:
- Popacular – popular delicious bookmarks
A list of the most popular bookmarks from delicious.com
- Tweecious Converts Twitter Links to Delicious Bookmarks
From ReadWriteWeb: Review of Tweecious, a new Firefox plugin that automates the conversion of Twitter links to Delicious bookmarks.
- del.icio.us tag cleaner
This is a tool for removing unnecessary tags from your del.icio.us bookmarks.
- delizzy – del.icio.us Bookmarks Search Engine
Del.icio.us is a great service, but when you search through your bookmarks, you are only searching through tags, titles and descriptions, not the page content. del.izzy lets you search through all content, including title, description and page content, for all your bookmarks.
- del.icio.us tag search
A form allows you to look up del.icio.us links that are tagged with one or more subjects.
- Fresh Delicious
Free downloadable tool checks your delicious bookmarks for broken and outdated links
- WordPress Plugin for Delicious Posting
WordPress Plugin that allows you to post your Delicious bookmarks to your blog with customization features.
- deliGoo – Delicious Search Engine
deliGoo is an extension for Firefox (2.0+) and Internet Explorer (6.0+), which is built into your browser in the form of an additional button on the tools’ panel. deliGoo searches on the sites, indicated in your del.icio.us bookmarks. With its help you can find the necessary page according to any phrase or word, which it contains. And one more thing – deliGoo can create on your demand custom search engines on any del.icio.us tag.
- similicio.us – find similar sites
Type in a url for a website or article that you like and this site will find other websites you might like based on people’s tags/bookmarks on del.icio.us.
- Bookmark suggestions from inSuggest
Enter a Delicious user name and get recommendations for simliar bookmarks.
- Popacular – popular delicious bookmarks
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June 2nd, 2009
Tags: Bookmarking · delicious · Marketing40 Comments







40 responses so far ↓
WOW, that’s a big list… I have always been a fan of Delicious, but I like what Worio.com is doing. They imported all my delicious bookmarks and I can search them just as I did in delicious, except when I am at worio it has some cool grouping features that I like over the D.
I am saving this for later because it is just TOO BIG to fit into my day today… :~!)
Killer post and resource directory!
Cheers,
http://delicious.com/dremeda
Hi Robin,
Great list! I did a deep dive on tagging and social bookmarking and put the resources in this wiki
http://nptag.wikispaces.com/
Nice to see some new resources in additon to old favorites.
Thanks. this is worthy of careful study and practice.
Nice post! the first thing i did was saved it on delicious I’m more of a stumbleupon + digg guy..
Excellent.
Very deep … and plenty to review.
This is a stands out as one of the best tools I have yet seen to understand and maximize Delicious.
To reward you for your hard work… how about another to make live fun? http://www.wordle.com
great day to you…
Michael Hartzell
[...] Ultimate Guide to Delicious Social Bookmarkinginteractiveinsightsgroup.com [...]
[...] Robin Broitman placed an observative post today on Ultimate Guide to Delicious Social BookmarkingHere’s a quick excerptDel.icio.us: An Underrated Link Building Tool. From Vandelay Design Blog: Discussion of why and how Delicious can be a powerful tool for driving traffic and building links to your website or blog. … Absolutely Delicious Tools Collection From Quick Online Tips: Regularly updated list of the best Delicious tools and services on the web (includes 3rd party tools beyond the official tools that Delicious offers). Third Party Tools on Delicious. List of third party tools for … [...]
And a very thorough guide it is.
Thanx… Nice & Lengthy guide….
I continue to be very impressed with the quality of your most informative articles.
Unsurpassed, from what I can see!
Congrats, and Thanks!
As an avid researcher, I find this information to be very helpful. Working online can definitely get arduous at times which is why we need to utilize all the organization resources we can take. You’ve earned my bookmark, Robin. Thank you.
Hi Robin
Thanks so much for the information. Quite an extensive list and I look forward to delving into it all (might take some time I suspect). I’ve always like Delicious and will be able to make better use of it now.
This is a great post. I’ll be tweeting, tagging, and blogging about it. It’s an Opus of Delicious resources. Thanks for assembling and sharing! Look forward to discovering more of your finds.
Robin,
Great post. I’m a big fan of delicious, too. You’ve provided an amazing list of resources.
I like how you describe delicious as “the engine of many of the blog posts I put together.”
I find I return to our delicious page frequently. So much information comes by at a rapid speed, delicious is a great way to be able to find it again. Otherwise, you might not stumble upon it again.
I’ve bookmarked this post! Thanks for this great piece.
Debbie Hemley
http://www.impressionsthroughmedia.com
http://delicious.com/cwcg
[...] Ultimate Guide to Delicious Social Bookmarking [...]
Thank you!!!! I have been looking for a resource just like this for Delicious and StumbleUpon. I knew I wasn’t tapping nearly 1/10th of their power.
Definitely bookmarking this article to both.!
Tracy
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I have an account with Delicious myself. I will join you and see what information we can share to improve both our marketing strategies.
A Completely Delicious list of information on delicious is provided here. Wonderful compilation
Hey Robin,
How long you did research to collect all this information? It’s amazing, if someone asks me that what is declicious? I won’t explain anything to him, i will just give this article to read.
Thanks
Sankar
Excellent list! Keep up your good work!
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Obviously you’ve spent some times doing the digging, and I applaud your effort. Thanks for putting up such a descriptive, detailed info about Delicious. Tweeted it. Very well done.
@wchingya
social media/blogging
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Grazie mille!
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Thank you very much for listing my post on your resource list. Many people have viewed my site as a result of your referral.
You’ve assembled an awesome list of Delicious resources, and many other social media resources as well.
Just to make sure I don’t miss any future posts, I am subscribing to your blog.
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Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Digg by Hedison: I used to prefer Digg. Now the shouts have gone…Not so sure
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This list is just amazing , I read all the articles and now feel like an expert…Thanks for sharing these amazing articles.