Why Delicious.com is More Social Than You Think [and Not Going Anywhere]

The landscape for social media aggregation sites has changed a lot lately. With Digg V4, we saw a huge shift in users heading over to Reddit, we have seen Reddit’s sub-communities (SubReddits) really blossom, StumbleUpon continue to grow a steady userbase, and even the closing of AOL’s Propeller and Yahoo’s Buzz.

What we have also seen is that even though audiences have moved around, the desire for users to participate in aggregation sites and the level of influencers you can get in front of, has not changed, and may have even grown over the years.

One such site that has continued to evolve and stay active is Delicious, but for whatever reason, it has failed to really make it into the top social media aggregation sites category. In fact many people had probably forgot about the site altogether until it was announced that Yahoo might close the project down.

Well Delicious is not being shut down and it is actually a lot more social media friendly than you probably remember.

Here are a collections of tips and features you can use to help you succeed better on Delicious.

If you have not logged in to your account in a while, then take a moment to do so.

Since Yahoo sold Delicious, they are moving all the bookmarks and accounts to the AVOS system. If you don’t want to lose all your bookmarks and account, then you will need to agree to their terms and allow them to migrate all your data over to their new AVOS system.

Takes only a second or two, so do that quick as it appears they will make a complete switch sometime in July 2011.

Tagging appropriately (and a lot)

It would seem a no brainer to tag the content you are bookmarking, but a lot of people actually skip it or just add the bare minimum they can think of. Not only are tags used to help result your bookmarks in site searches, but Delicious actually has a tag subscription feature.

“Subscriptions are a way to see the recent bookmarks that everybody has saved with the tags that you’re interested in. After you add a tag to your subscriptions, the latest bookmarks for that tag will appear on this page. You can subscribe to multiple tags to create an automatically updated list of interesting bookmarks.”

Note that once you have figured out the right tags for your content, people that are subscribed to those tags will see the most recent content with that tag applied. So this is a great way to get your content right in front of your target audience on Delicious.

Researching Tags

There are a large number of people who actually just use Delicious for the market research on what the average person is tagging various content. It can give you great insight into what people think of when they read content that is similar to yours.

Additionally, understanding what people are tagging and where to better learn about those tags, can lead to you knowing how to get in front of an audience that is going to be prone to liking and saving your bookmarks.

There are a few places you can get information on tags in Delicious, but a great place to start is on the ‘Tags‘ section… go figure.

You will notice that they highlight in green what they consider to be related to the tags you have been using. So if you have been tagging your bookmarks appropriately based on what you think it should be, then you might find some good related terms here to consider.

When you find a word you like, go ahead and put it into the tag search box at the top and run the search.

If you searched a tag that has known related tags in the Delicious system, they will be shown on the right side of the tag search results page.

To further define what additional tags really fit a target audience and relate to what you are trying to bookmark, try adding multiple known tags into the tag filter box (see below) and find the additional tags that are being used when a multiple of known tags are also being used.

Lastly you can see what popular tags are being used currently on the site, by checking out the ‘Explore Tags‘ section.

So as you can see, there is no excuse for not having a better understanding of what your tags should be and tags are one of the core elements of Delicious you need to start using better.

Using Your Network

This is a pretty obvious one, but if you were a Delicious user before Yahoo got a hold of it, then you didn’t have a network really. Well you do now, along with pretty cool sharing features.

Of course I would suggest starting with friend you happen to know use Delicious, but then make sure you really find people that are going to like the content you might share with them. Search your newly researched tags, maybe even with multiple tags, and find users that are interested in the same type of content.

Once you have found a bookmark that you would like to potentially add the submitter to your network, click on the number to the right of the bookmark. Note that you have to have at least one other bookmark, a total of two, in order for this numbered box to appear.

This will take you to a page where you can see who first saved it, and anyone else that has also saved the bookmark.

Click on the person you want to add to your network, which takes you to their profile page, and then click on the ‘Add to my Network’ link in the top right corner under the search box.

Additionally here you can also check out this user’s network as well, by clicking on the ‘Network’ link at the top of the page.

Now you have people in your network with whom you can share bookmarks with. To do so you simply click on the share link to the right of any bookmark.Click on the Delicious Icon and you will be presented with a share screen, where you can type in the name of someone from your network to share the bookmark with.

Fair warning that if you spam your new network with a massive amount of shares, you are not going to have a network for very long, so be courteous and try to send things when you really think it is worth sharing.

BONUS: Using Colors

Wait! What? You can use colors in your delicious bookmarks? Yup, you sure can and it can help make your bookmark stand out from the rest.

When saving a bookmark in Delicious, simple add the following at the beginning of your url: color:FE9600,. Note that you can change out the number to equal any color you like, but remember to have the comma at the end of the number and before the url.

Example: color:0099CC,999999,006699,http://www.blueglass.com

Delicious really is an awesome site for both research and getting your content, aka bookmarks, in front of a very web savvy audience. I hope the tips above help you use the site more effectively!

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