Social bookmarking tips for women bloggers?

[Lynn]

The bigger social bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit don't always welcome articles written from a woman's perspective.

That's why I really appreciate websites like Kirtsy and Propeller which are more open to women bloggers.

Are there mroe sites out there where we can promote each other's writing? Is it possible to overcome the bias in sites like Digg and Reddit?

[davoscat]

I think Stumbled Upon is pretty gender neutral. If anything I think it favors women bloggers because I think the SU community has a preference for visually pleasing sites.

This is a big generalization, but I think women bloggers have a tendency to take more care with design and adding pictures.

[Myscha Theriault]

Well, I know I personally could be better about requesting input from other professionals via these forums or other media comment request services, some of which I have only recently become familiar with. Or hey, maybe we could start that here . . . people can post if they are looking for commentary, articles to reference, or images about a certain topic, and also people can post if they have info and pictures of things they feel are worthy or topical. It works like this on a travel media site I've started using. It ends up being a win - win thing.

For example, there's a piece on plastics I'm thinking of doing, and I know there's a blogger that participates regularly in our discussions who is active in finding ways to use less of this stuff in general. It's been on my mind to invite her to collaborate on a piece. Maybe this will be the month I finally do that.

Hope this isn't too off topic. You mentioned the bookmarking thing specifically, but I think this does relate in that we would all be building a stronger base of contacts. I've recently signed up for Plaxo and have run into fellow bloggers and contacts there.

http://pulse.plaxo.com/pulse/import/...ne=%2Fpulse%2F

[svb]

I think that there is a particular culture in each of the social bookmarking networks. The most active users of a given network tend to set the vibe in their online community, so Digg has a certain techie flavor to it, while Reddit gives me a political tone. And of course, these places are dominated by younger males. So unless you're writing for that particular audience, you may get less traction in these places.

Stumble Upon seems much more topical and seems to work better for financial sites in general. I'm not sure why it is, but SU seems to be the stickiest sb network for financial blogs I think. Most bloggers I know get the best response from Stumble Upon.

I haven't tried Propeller much. Maybe I should!

[Lynn]

That's a great breakdown SVB.

I think Reddit has grown incredibly political in the last couple of months (this is what I call the Ronpaulization of Reddit). In the past Reddit used to be pretty interested in offbeat stories. Now it is mostly Obama v. McCain.

[Greg]

I'm really digging Mixx (pun intended). http://www.mixx.com

It allows you create categories and tags, and only see those categories. That essentially gives users a "roll your own digg" platform.

The pros of Mixx:

• Not a lot of users but growing quickly. You still have a chance to be the top Mixxer for most categories.

The cons of Mixx:

• Not a lot of users, so going popular on Mixx doesn't really push much traffic.

So check it out and come play with us at Mixx. You can follow me at: http://www.mixx.com/users/greggo

[Greg]

Originally Posted by svb

I haven't tried Propeller much. Maybe I should!

I don't like Propeller's new design. And they just laid off a bunch of their editors. End of the party coming (again)? I think so.