While there are countless marketing methods online, few of them level the playing field the way social bookmarking does. Internet marketers who work at home who want to increase their website traffic, so they can earn money online, have become highly smitten with the concept of social bookmarking. However, with all marketing methods there are dos and don’ts that can greatly affect the final outcome of success.

First a brief explanation of what social bookmarking is. Social bookmarking is a way for surfers to find, save, organize, and share their bookmarks of different pages. Contrary to automated resource classification software social bookmarking sites are arranged by humans rather than computerized algorithms. Thus, sites that have more human votes or bookmarks are deemed more valuable than their highly ranked search engine counterparts.

One of the most common social bookmarking mistakes is adding every icon out there to your website or blog. Believe it or not you are not increasing your chances of getting bookmarked. Too many options confuse users. Instead, choose the bookmarking service of communities that best resonates with your reader. If you’re still determined to cater to everyone then opt for a bookmark that drops down or folds out but hides the other options. Another common mistake is heavily submitting your own content.

Submitting your own content seems like the best way to get people in touch with your information, but community users can smell a promoter from a mile away. If every bookmark in your file is of your own brand, you not only look desperate, you also look phony. Can you still submit your site? Yes, I’m not saying don’t bookmark your site. But bookmark and vote on other content as well. Also if you are going to be part of the community and promote your site avoid using your brand or company name as your user name. Try to sound as generic as possible.

Social bookmarking benefits those who put “being popular” and earning money online aside for a minute, and instead focus on genuine participation rather than ridiculous conversation. The truth is many social bookmarking platforms can function without conversation. After all we have forums and live chat for that.

Social media is about the sharing of information. That means that your press releases are not going to fair too well in a community where people are eager to learn or keep up with gossip, and as a reminder all users of social media want this, more importantly though, social media is about the democratization of content. It puts users in control and this is perhaps why it can level out the marketing playing field.

In order to benefit, you have to actively participate by submitting and voting on content that matters to you and other users. You also need to help users along by submitting comments more meaningful than “that was the best article ever!” Like all communities there are those who make an effort to keep it thriving and those who are “just there.” And users can sense it if your just another work at home marketer using them to earn money online and do this by working at home.