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How would you like your blog posts to go viral?

Ask any blogger, he/she will tell you: Submit your posts to social bookmarking sites; promote them on social networks.  Sure, but have we optimized our blogs for that challenge yet? Do your readers ever bother to use those lovely social bookmarking plugins beneath your post?

Educate Readers To Utilize Social Bookmarking Plugins.. HOW?

Since self-submissions are prohibited, it lies in the hands of our readers. They may like your post so much but no idea how to share it. What you can do is :

1. Increase visibility of your social bookmarking plugins. Make a post to showcase the tool if you have to.

2. Announce your newly adapted plugin or a social network you just joined; encourage readers to try/join as well.

3. Make a summon at the end of each post to whether ‘stumble/tweet’ the post if they like it. Needless to sound pitiful or demanding, just a friendly reminder that makes them realize  ‘Ohhh.. I can do that! ‘

4. Create a poll. Ask your readers what are their likes/dislikes in post-sharing.

I enjoyed Darren’s latest post about The Myth of ‘Great Content’ Marketing Itself. Post-promoting is a part of content-seeding. If you don’t care about that little post-sharing plugin, your readers won’t either. Remember,

“A Quality Content is Nothing Without Audiences!”

16 Social Bookmarking Plugins To Promote Your Posts

Before that, let me share with you a plugin-check I had on blogs I subscribed (nearly 60% of them are the frequent visitors of my blog). Although the figures do not represent the majority but at least they show the behavior of those who I am networking with for the time being.

Good to know that most of them are using social bookmarking tools, but how about 25% who aren’t? Do they aware of the plugins or simply not planning to include one? Thanks to Christie and the discussion we had in one of her posts’ comment, I decided to test the WordPress plugins myself. Instead of going into lengthy reviews, I decided to share them visually instead — the images can speak well for themselves.

Expandable Plugins vs. Displayed Social Bookmarking Icons

Expandable plugins required mouse-over or a mouse-click to expand the bookmarking list, usually supporting up to 50 to 100+ bookmarking sites; while displayed social bookmarking icons are more focus and visible, but limited choices. If you’re a visual type of visitor like I am, probably you are more into the latter. There’s no exact right or wrong pick, simply self-preferences. If you don’t own any just yet, now it’s a good time to grab one!

Expandable Plugins — A Click/Hover to Expand

1. Share This

2. AddThis

3. Socialmarker

4. Sexy Expand Bookmarking

5. Add To Any

6. ibegin share

7. Social Bookmarks

- The setting is ‘hide’ in default, meaning you need to click to expand the social bookmarking icons. You can preset the preferred icons to be shown:

Or you can have the icons displayed without hiding (arranging from 1 to 5 lines) :

Displayed Social Bookmarking Icons — One Clear View

8. Tweet This

- Plenty of social bookmarking sites to choose from, come in various styles, colors and sizes. Settings available to tweet your latest post.

9. AddToThis

- Simple is better. 5 nice-looking icons as shown below:

10. Bookmarkify

- Can reposition the plugin on top or bottom of the post. The ability to display all the icons chosen (multiple sites to choose from):

Or prevent them from crowding the area by adding a ‘More’ option for expansion.

11. diggZ-Et

- The familiar, good-old Digg button on top of your post.

12. Social Bookmarking RELOADED

- Exactly how they will show up underneath your post:

13. Social Dropdow

- Preset your favored social bookmarking/media sites and have them appear in each post. Adjust the drop down width according to your likings. Do aware while activating this plugin, you may need to embed a code as instructed in ‘other information’ to have them displayed properly:

Too many of them? Configure it for 1-click expansion instead, or ‘more’:

14. SocioFluid

- Absolutely one of my favorites for fun visual effects. Not only it has plenty of social bookmarking options, but including the flexibility to resize the icons (16, 24, 32, 48) and adjust placements (top/bottom). Below are the examples of 16px and 48px respectively:

Or better! Have it configured as when hovering you get to see the fluid-movements from small to enlarged. Pretty neat huh?

15. Top Social Bookmarking Buttons

- Yes, only 7 sites provided. If that’s all you need, why not?

16. Tweetmeme

- Not only it comes with analytics, but visible and easy tweeting with just one click. If you’re a Twitter fanatic, you’ll agree this is a must-have.

Now Is Your Turn

What is/are the criteria(s) affecting your choice in social bookmarking plugin? Kindly share your experience or likes/dislikes while sharing posts.

One more thing…

If you like this post (or this blog), can I ask you a tiny favor to vote for me on Famous Bloggers Club contest? No pressure though, it’s all Free Will. ^^ I advanced my thanks to your support.