Here on Zoomit Canada, a lot of people come to post links to their own content.  That is fine.  Unlike some social bookmarking websites, we encourage you to submit your best material - as long as it’s Canadian, of course.  But once you’ve posted what do you do next?

Unfortunately, most people just leave. 

What?!?  Is that what you call effective marketing?  Drop a link and leave?  When you attend business networking meetings do you just drop your business card on a table somewhere and leave?  Of course not.

Once your submission is complete, you will notice that you land on the “upcoming” page.  This is for a good reason - so you can see submissions from other people just like you.  So you can check them out.  So you can vote for the good ones.  So you can comment for the ones of interest. (It’s not just Zoomit that does this by the way; Tipd, Sphinn, BizSugar and MMO, to name just a few, also send you to the upcoming page for the same reason.)

Why it’s worth your time to check out others’ submissions

Why is it worth your time and effort to look at other people’s submissions?  Well, for the same reason that you take the time to speak with people at networking meetings - because the value to you of participating depends on the relationships you build with other members.

“But I just submitted my site to get a link

to help my search engine rankings.”

Umm, if that’s how you think about linkbuilding, your understanding of how search engines value links in 2010 needs to be updated.  And so does your understanding of how most social bookmarking websites function.  Dropping a link and leaving - “hit-and-run social bookmarking” - won’t get you very far.

First, the more votes you get, the more links you get from the website.  This applies to most vote-based social bookmarking websites (Digg is an exception).  And you need votes to get your submission promoted to the front page (”published” or made “popular”), where on most social bookmarking websites you NoFollow link becomes a regular DoFollow link.

If you want good quality links from social bookmarking, here is what you need to do:

AVATAR:  Make sure you have an easy-to-recognize avatar.  You want regulars to check what you’ve submitted, and regulars will get to know you over time.

QUALITY:  Submit good quality content that others will naturally want to vote for. Subbing your home page is simply lame.  Nobody cares to read your home page or to recommend that others read it. Don’t damage your reputation by submitting  your home page.  Make your submission enticing with an attractive title that will draw attention and curiosity.  Ditto for the description.

VOTE:  This is crucial.  Vote for the submissions of other members (that’s why you land on the “upcoming” page when your submission is complete).  Don’t try a tit-for-tat arrangement like, “I voted for three of your submissions last week, so you have to vote for three of mine.”  But people do expect a certain amount of reciprocity, and if they see you ignoring their submissions, why would they vote for yours?

COMMENT:  Even better to attract attention of other members is to comment.  As much as most people value the vote more than the comment, it is the comment that draws the most attention.  Yes, people notice when you comment; they check out your latest submission.

If you want people to see your submission.  If you want more links from the submission.  If you want your link to be DoFollow.  Take the time to vote for and comment on the best articles that other people submit.  Nobody likes a hit-and-run social bookmarketer, and nobody votes their submissions to the front page.

Huh? What is this?

This is our latest pet, Spammy the Guard Dog. He is very useful around the site, cleaning up messes that inconsiderate spammers leave lying around. Prior to Spammy’s arrival, we would spend half-an-hour every morning cleaning up overnight spam. Now, there are just a few crumbs that Spammy misses.

Spammy works at the submission level. When a new link is being submitted, Spammy runs up and gives a big, wet friendly lick to the submitter. Unless the submitter is a spammer. In which case, Spammy grabs the spammer in his teeth, rips him to shreds and all that’s left is the little notice you see here above.

Every website should have a Spammy.

Oh, and if you come here to spam, just remember…you’ll have to answer to our sweet but vicious Spammy.

One of the reasons for Zoomit Canada’s existence is to provide a place where Canadians can discuss things without getting overshadowed by what the rest of the world is discussing.  There are plenty of big international social bookmarking engines which sometimes include Canadian stories … but mostly Canadian stories get overshadowed by US and international stories. 

For this reason guidelines were created that essentially require stories posted to Zoomit Canada to be either a) on a Canadian website or b) addressing a topic specifically from a Canadian perspective. The topic might still be global in nature, but this ensures that it at least has an element of Canadianism to it.

That this is a somewhat arbitrary guideline is reflected in the conversation reproduced below (best viewed by clicking on it in FireFox or Chrome; Internet Explorer mucks up the letters). This is, however, the least-restrictive guideline that still distinguishes Zoomit Canada from other social bookmarking engines.

Zoomit Canada has a new “Crime” channel. It was noticed that there are a lot of stories about crime and justice that just don’t fit well into any of the other channels. For instance, in the past week the following six “crime” stories hit the Zoomit Canada front page:

http://canadiana.zoomit.ca/fbi-confirms-ont-man-linked-to-dead-islamic-radical/
http://canadiana.zoomit.ca/no-bomb-found-in-iqaluit-hotel-after-evacuation/
http://canadiana.zoomit.ca/guard-cellphone-number-like-credit-cards/
http://automotive.zoomit.ca/drunk-clown-nabbed-after-crash/
http://people.zoomit.ca/magic-mushrooms-seized-in-highway-stop/
http://people.zoomit.ca/father-son-team-honored-by-opp/

If you were hesitating to submit a crome or justice story before, now’s your chance.

Zoomit Canada is pleased to announce the appointment of a new Director of Marketing. Karen Stephenson has been among the most active Zoomers and has a passion for Canadian social bookmarking.  She is a unique writer and editor with fifteen years experience in print media and online publications. She has won awards for her writing and has a knack for gaining attention due to some of the topics she writes about.

Some of Karen’s work attracted media attention in the past and as a result, she captured recognition from Senator Anne C. Cools, who requested that Karen be involved in several of her projects. More recently, Karen has branched into SEO and SMO.

Karen is an active volunteer in the community and has a passion for helping people. She values family time and enjoys working out on a regular basis.

Karen will be responsible primarily for raising the level of activity at Zoomit Canada over the next few months.

The Zoomit algorithm has been updated. Regular users will have noticed that all it previously took were two zooms or one zoom and one comment for a story to reach the front page. We have upgraded the algorithm for two reasons:

1. We are getting a lot more great content than we were at the beginning.
2. Spammy submissions were starting to show up on the front page

Effective immediately, stories will have to stand a slightly tougher test to make the front page. So what does this mean for you to get your submission onto the front page?

• Make sure you submit good quality stories
• Make sure your title and description are enticing
• Start the conversation by adding a comment of your own
• Take time to zoom and comment on other items, so those submitters will do the same for you

Happy zooming.

A recent report by HitWise shows that Canadians love to spend their time on social networking websites almost as much as they use search engines, and just a bit more than they seek entertainment. Of course, that’s something that Zoomit members already know. Here is the latest data available.

Where Canadians go online

The biggest social bookmarking website in the world, Digg, made a major change to its entire functionality this week.  Other social bookmarking websites, including Zoomit, will be watching closely what happens next.

In case you missed it, Digg removed the “shout” features. Despite what you might read elsewhere, there were actually two distinct shout features, both of which were removed:

• Share a story with up to about 100 of those people following you.
• Shout to a single user about anything at all, “How’s it going?”  “I have a new IM.” Got anything for me to Digg?” Interestingly, this change is not mentioned on the Digg blog.

The first shout feature was replaced by a share on Twitter, FaceBook and email.  The second feature was simply removed.

At first blush, removing the shout features seems ludicrous. Digg seems to be taking a step backward toward less functionality.  And as the web gets more social, Digg gets less social.  Zoomit does not yet have a way to communicate amongst members, but  we do plan to include one (Anyone have a lead on some VC help?) 

So we find ourselves asking, “why?”

There are at least four reasons cited for Digg’s change:

• The first shout system was sometimes used for spamming other Digg users by sending several items for digging, over and over.  While a little annoying, very few users did this, and those that did could easily be unfriended.  Generally, it never got more irritating than someone sending the same link 3 times during a 24-hour period. It is unlikely this was the motivation behind the changes.
• Some users also felt the shout system was used between power diggers to make sure they got enough votes for their submissions to make the front page.  This was most likely the main concern.  Regular users were feeling shut out and Digg rightly sought to rectify this.
• Adding the Twitter and FaceBook links would also be a way of exposing Digg to so many non-Digg users.  Whenever a Digg user tweets an item on Digg, all his followers on Twitter would see it, not just his Digg friends.  Smart thinking.
• Removing shouts saves bandwidth.

Although we will be watching closely what happens next, we do have some early observations.

• Shouts have not ended, they have just been sent off-site.  This is not a good thing.  A social website that requires people to go elsewhere to communicate forfeits some of its users.  I am sure Digg will not lose too many, but it will lose some.
• The small spamming problem for Digg is over.  The big spamming problem for Twitter has just begun.
• Inequality between power diggers and regular users on Digg has ended, but…  The power diggers are already creating offsite networks like DiggShout and Twibes where regular users will be effectively shut out.  That one could backfire on Digg.
• The Twitter/FaceBook/Email function is a good one.  Smart move, Digg.  Zoomit will do this, too.
• Saving bandwidth is not worth losing some users and giving too much power to those heavy users who stay, in our opinion (and we are not sure if this was ever really a consideration).

Did Digg have alternatives?  We think so.

• Adding the Twitter and FaceBook sharing could have been done with or without other changes.
• One-on-one shouts should have been retained, and Digg still can (hopefully) put them back.
• Share-a-story shouts could have been limited to, say, 25 at a time.
• Share-a-story shouts could have been limited to, say, once per story.
• Share-a-story shouts could have been limited to, say, once per hour or three times per day.
• Share-a-story shouts could have been limited to, say, a total of 100 person-shouts per day.
• All shouts could have been limited to, say, a total of 100 person-shouts per day.
• Any combination of these options (replacing these arbitrary numbers with whatever works best for Digg)

Watching Digg and its users’ reactions (so far) has given us the chance to reflect on what will work best for Zoomit when we get the chance to address sharing.  Thank you, Digg.

It seems that marketers are turning to social media in a downturn, as the chart below, courtesy of Marketing Sherpa, reveals.

This would be the perfect time for a brand-conscious Canadian company get behind Canada’s social bookmarking site and help make it fly by sponsoring Zoomit Canada’s activities.

No surprise.  As soon as we put out a quality social bookmarking website with search engine friendly links, we knew we would get spammed.  What is surprising is that some people who don’t want to be spammers are doing so just because they don’t understand basic social media etiquette.  So here are a few basic rules of thumb:

• It’s OK to self-promote here, just as it is at that conference cocktail reception. (Not all social media websites appreciate this, but part of our mandate is to give exposure to Canadian websites.)
• When you join, watch what others are doing, just as when you join any organization.
• Give first before taking.  In the case of a social bookmarking website, that means zoom other people’s submissions and comment on other people’s submissions before getting too self-promotional.
• Submit web pages of interest in which you have no vested interest, not just your own web pages.  We all carry more credibility when we share others’ work, not just our own.
• Have fun and be sociable.  That’s what “social” media is all about.

If you follow these basic rules at pretty much any social media website, you can’t go too far off track.  The rest is just details.