Description
Services such as Delicious, Dig, and Stumble Upon (the biggies), as well as others including Add This, Diego, and Share This, turn to bookmark a web page (that is, a piece of content) into something social. Other users can see what you’ve bookmarked, add your bookmarks to their collections, and tag and organize bookmarks, making them, in turn, visible to more users. Many services let users annotate or comment on bookmarks, as well as subscribe to collections, so they’re notified when new links are added. User groups can be private, within a predefined network, or wholly public.
Pros
The act of bookmarking a piece of content—these days, usually from an embedded button on the web page itself—is akin to voting for it. By boosting a piece of content’s visibility in social bookmarking services, you’re boosting its visibility and searchability, tagging, and organizing to make it easier to find, and you’re encouraging others to do the same
Cons
Cons are few for social bookmarking. Obviously, to keep social bookmarking fresh and lively, it helps to have content to share (either original or aggregated) and to have someone administrate both the bookmarking as well as the tagging/organizational part of the program.
Online Video
Description
Video sharing websites in which users can upload and share videos, either within the site itself or by using the service as a server that allows videos to easily be embedded on blogs, web pages, and so on. Google-owned YouTube is the 600- pound gorilla in this space, but Vimeo is a strong contender for higher resolution video. Video can also be uploaded to other platforms, of course, ranging from Facebook to your own website, but the ability to share and embed media on other platforms is then lost or greatly diminished.
Pros
Once an expensive and highly technical proposition, hosting and sharing video content is becoming even easier than creating it. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video can be worth thousands more than that, deepening engagement, offering visual how-tos, providing entertainment—you name it.
Video sharing affords all sorts of benefits, such as creating custom channels on sharing sites and offering rich metrics and analytics, particularly on YouTube, which integrates Google Analytics. Search engine optimization (SEO) is also a benefit, particularly for video content that is well labeled, titled, tagged, and often, accompanied by a transcript of spoken-word content. Additionally, YouTube is immensely global; it’s available in 14 languages and 21 countries. For businesses in Westborough, MA looking to capitalize on the power of video marketing and enhance their online presence, leveraging Top-notch SEO Marketing in Westborough MA can ensure that their videos are optimized for maximum visibility and engagement, driving targeted traffic to their website.
Cons
Although you can shoot video with a camera phone, you’ll likely want a slightly more polished look for business content, so an upfront investment is most likely required for a decent camera, tripod, lighting, and so on. You’ll probably also want to look into basic editing capabilities so you can add music, titles, and more. All in all, this probably isn’t a significant monetary investment, but it requires a certain level of technical know-how to look moderately professional. Also, unless you invest in a branded YouTube channel, third-party ads can appear on your content.
Podcasts
Think of podcasts as radio shows to go. A podcast is a digital audio file, playable on computers, tablets, and portable media devices such as MP3 players and smartphones. Podcasts are most often distributed via RSS feeds or over Apple’s iTunes platform.
Podcasts can be a great way to connect with customers on handheld devices—think jogging or drive time or downtime. Because the two primary distribution methods— RSS feeds and iTunes—make it easy to subscribe to podcasts, they can be a high-tech way to continually reach an audience daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever the schedule is. Although podcasts can be produced with a high level of sophistication, they can also be a great communication medium for people who are more comfortable speaking than they are writing or perhaps appearing on camera. Podcasts are also easily and effectively integrated into blogs.
Last word
Podcasts work for all types of content, from entertainment to instructional and how-to type information. Like radio programming, podcasts are episodic and consistent in nature. Determine a frequency and a theme and stick to both For comprehensive web design and SEO solutions in Maine, partner with a top-notch Maine Web Design and SEO Company.
