The best way to get on social bookmarking sites is to make it easy for people to share your information. Be sure to include the social media icon links with your content (i.e. those icons at the end of an article that ask you to share it). There are ways to attempt to push your content to front page status, however for public relations professionals these are often advised against for most situations. Pronet Advertising has a great introduction to how Digg works on their blog.

Social bookmarking tools start with a collection of links compiled by individuals. Using different measurement techniques, depending on the site, the links that are deemed important or interesting to many people are moved to the site's homepage, which has the potential to receive more visibility. Like many online networks, these tools are organic in nature so trying to persuade a social community that your content deserves this high status is seen as forced and will be looked at with distaste.

Steve Rubel, SVP, director of insights, Edelman Digital, advises strongly against promoting your own content through these bookmarking tools on his blog Micropersuasion, saying "They're beautiful to look at and admire, but they're very dangerous to touch."

Digg

That being said, many think it is possible to create content that has a higher chance of being "dugg." There are many blog posts that try to explain the secrets to making your content reach the homepage of Digg. Many of these suggestions include making a funny video or writing a "top 10" list. While these may work, you are still at the mercy of Digg users who have the ability to "digg" your content or "bury" it.

While I'm not saying that a placement on Digg's homepage isn't exciting, many blogs say it might not be worth it. Sure, that piece of content will be seen many more times than it might have been had it not been on Digg, but Digg viewers are not loyal return readers. Chris Brogan reports his disappointment when making it to the front page of Digg produced no increase in views or RSS subscribers on his blog.

del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is a slightly different social bookmarking tool that has more potential in the public relations world. Del.icio.us allows you to save bookmarks online, share them with other people and see what other people are bookmarking. Although the site keeps track of the most popular bookmarks, there is little fear of being seen as an outsider on this site because many people use it for many different reasons.

Ogilvy PR's blog noted they use del.icio.us as a way to communicate information between themselves and its clients. The site provides a convenient way to share recent coverage or articles concerning their industry.

Todd Defren advises using del.icio.us for thought leadership in his blog, PR-Squared. He suggests creating a del.icio.us account for every MAJOR news release and sharing links that would allow those interested in the news to gain more context and information. He also gives best practice suggestions including giving an explanation on why each link is shared, tagging the links and allowing viewers to subscribe to an RSS feed.

Ann Handley, chief content officer, Marketing Profs agrees, "It's a way for organizations to further their role as a resource to their audience."

In my case, I have the links I used to research this blog post on my del.icio.us profile, SarahSLHaas.

Depending on how they are used, social bookmarking websites can be a viable part of a public relations plan. As in all social networking however, it is important to stay honest as to who you are and why you are there as well as be as natural as possible. As Brian Solis once said on his blog, "In the long tail, most don't want to hear from a PR person at all. This is PR's opportunity to stop acting like "PR" and become experts on the products/services they represent."