Use of automated social bookmarking tools

[dustinmattison]

Do you recommend the use of automated social book marking tools such as Traffic Bug?

How can I automate the process of submitting RSS feeds, social bookmarking, web 2.0 sites and article submissions?

I have read in some places to use Traffic Bug, but I am not sure if I should use it?

Should I use article automation tools like Article Marketing Automation.com?

I am confused with all the choices for article marketing. Which is best?

Should I do everything manually?

[c14h20o4]

Hiya Dustin,

And thus we enter into the sea of crap that is the world of internet marketing!

First, you don't need to buy anything to do well with having a website, promoting it, and making money from it.

With that said, there are a ton of processes that can be automated and you're already aware of a lot of those. For submitting RSS feeds, I'm sure that Tim and/or Anthony would love for me to push their own product, the Web Traffic Genius but I won't. I'll say instead, I put it on all of my sites, take a week or two to setup as many accounts as I can and then I forget about it and get on to more important things.

Now about traffic bug and article marketing automation... those are subscription based products aren't they? Do you really want to be locked into a submission based tool when you could own software to do the same thing and own it outright?

These are just a few of my thoughts and I'd better stop before I fill the page up.

Chris

[dustinmattison]

Thanks for your response. So which is the best way to automate social bookmarking? I plan to get an RSS automation tool. But what tools are out there for automating other processes that suck up a lot of time when done manually?

[c14h20o4]

Hiya Dustin,

The best way to automate social bookmarking is to outsource it. If that isn't an option, you can automate bookmarking with a service or with software. Services have the downside of a monthly fee; software has the downside of knowing if it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. Tim and Anthony recommend socialbot by incansoft. I haven't used it but instead have used Bookmarking Demon. Socialbot looks like it has a lot of the same features as BMD but is a lot cheaper. So there are definitely software solutions.

Where things are going to be different is how you choose to use the tools you use. Automation should make your life easier but you shouldn't use it to spam. Social bookmarking should be something social. That means, if your social bookmarking software allows for automatic account creation, instead of creating hundreds of accounts, use the software to create a few accounts and then go to those sites where the account was created and fill out the profiles and upload an avatar. Try to make friends with other people on those sites. What I'm saying is way slower than the spammy way but your profiles will be indexed and stay indexed.

Now to answer your second question...

But what tools are out there for automating other processes that suck up a lot of time when done manually?

Here, you have the whole development cycle, which starts with keyword research. Market Samurai is often recommended. Personally, I don't use it because it doesn't fit with the type of sites I build, but a lot of people like it. Then there are webmaster tools (not a reference to google's webmaster tools). These include plugins like the ones that help you build internal links automatically or tweet posts for you or syndicate your posts to facebook. After that, you have promotional tools. These are the spinners and bookmarking tools and article marketing tools etc.

In short, you'll need to ask about specific processes before I can make any recommendations.

Chris

[dustinmattison]

Chris
Thanks for your response. Do you have any suggestions on how to go about outsourcing? Should I just find someone on odesk with general computer skills and teach them how to do backlinks, social book marking, etc? Or should I find someone with specific skills? I have heard you can find someone to do basic admin for $1.50/hr. Is this true?

Have you tried this service? Free Traffic System Overview - FREE vs PRO | Free Traffic System
What about this? Social Bookmarking Service - Submitting to Social Bookmark & Social News Sites.

I am starting an internet marketing consulting business for local clients. I just got my first client and I am weeding my way through all of the options. Do you think I should first do everything myself in order to understand the process and requirements?

[c14h20o4]

Hiya Dustin,

Sorry for not getting to this as quickly as I would like--sometimes the real world gets in the way.

Your question:

Do you think I should first do everything myself in order to understand the process and requirements?

Yeah I definitely feel that you should hold off on outsourcing until you have a solid gasp of what needs to be done and how things happen. For example, if you don't understand keyword research and you outsource content creation, you'd just be throwing money down the drain because the stuff you'd be having written wouldn't target keywords worth targeting. Also if you've not gone through the fire, you'd have a tough time judging if your candidates are qualified to do the work you want them to do.

As far as helping local clients goes, usually, seo is a lot more simple in terms of the number of backlinks you need to get rankings. Also with a local buisness, you don't want to do anything spammy so having good knowledge of on-page seo and sticking with the better directories, social venues and trade organizations are going to be your best bet for links. Guest posting on other relevant blogs and video marketing will help as well.

The two resources you mentioned. Free Traffic System is something that I think I've seen recommended around here and I have signed up but never used it. It seems like it is no obligation or heavy up-selling so I guess it might be ok for links. The links you get probably won't be that powerful though but on the other hand it still is a place to get links so you'll have to test it and see if it's worth using from a rankings standpoint.

The social bookmarking site is something that I've not looked into either. Where I can, I prefer to purchase software vs buying subscriptions, but again, if you're doing local businesses, you might not be bookmarking on a volume that requires software or a subscription--at least in the beginning.

Hope that helps,
Chris