Are you a closet blog pimp? I’m not: I’m not the least bit closety about it. If you’d like to get some deservedly increased exposure for your own blog, read on.
First of all, check out that word, “deservedly.” What that means is, you should only use these techniques to promote blog posts that are good in and of themselves, that people will be interested to see. If the blog post doesn’t meet that standard, not only do I not recommend these techniques, but I recommend that you delete the posts entirely. After all, if they’re no good and boring, who needs ‘em?
This doesn’t mean that your life journal entries should be wiped from the face of the planet; it means instead that you post them because posting them does good, it does you good, and that’s reason enough to post them. But not everyone on Digg needs to read them, so using this technique would be way overkill.
So, you’ve got a blog post that’s not only darn solid, but darn interesting as well. How do you get other people interested in this interesting interestingness? You encourage them to pass it around, that’s how. You make it easy for them to grab hundreds of people by the shoulders and say, “Hey, check this out! It’s really cool!”
You do that with social bookmarking links, like these:
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Each of those icons is a live link to a different social bookmarking site, a site where the members, who may number in the millions, make recommendations about interesting things to read. You’ll have seen them on pretty much every post on this blog, and this is how you make them for your own WordPress.com blog (it works for other blogs, too, but you may find there are shortcuts for other services we’re not covering here).
When people click on them, it takes them to their social bookmarking site, where they sign in and a post is generated automatically, alerting the readership of that site to something someone thought they should see. In some services, like Digg, there’s space for a bit of explanation about the story; titles are very important in attracting readership, and can sometimes be quite long and detailed, including keywords like [vid] and [audio] or [pic] to let people know what they’re in for.
Here’s the simple 411 for putting in your own row of social bookmarking links, and many thanks to sunburntkamel, who taught me everything I know and uploaded these images in the first place.
- right-click to download the Word document Social Bookmarking Template Sunburntkamel
- That code already contains links to the images hosted at WordPress.com, so you don’t need to upload them in your own space like you usually would to avoid hotlinking. It’s copacetic this time.
- This updated version is a little narrower, and includes that all-important Facebook icon.
- Now, make your post and publish it, just like usual.
- Go to the post (not the main blog page) and copy the URL for that post.
- Open the social bookmark links template that you made above and if you’re working in Notepad, untick “Word Wrap”. That’s important, otherwise you just get a ton of HTML instead of your nice links.
- Do a Search and Replace (Go to Edit, then Replace) for the word addy which is short for “address” and in the second box put the URL of the blog post. Then hit Replace All. This will take everywhere the word ADDY was and replace it with the address of the blog post (that’s why you use a weird word like ADDY, so it will never be a part of the actual name or anything; less confusion).
- Now do a Search and Replace, only search for the word nomen which is Latin for “name” and replace all with the actual title of the blog post. Now your code is ready.
- Copy all of the code, every bit of it, and go to Edit your blog post.
- Click over from the Visual editor (with the icons) to the Code editor.
- In the Code editor, scroll down to the bottom of the post and paste in all the code you just copied.
- Click back to the Visual editor to make sure that the buttons showed up nicely and just double check everything. If it’s all good, just hit Save and it’ll manifest its lovely, button-sprinkled self on your blog post.
- When you close the Notepad document, DO NOT SAVE THE CHANGES!!!! ever, ever, ever. If you save the changes you’ll blot out the “addy” and “nomen” placeholders and replace them with stuff specific to that post; then when you open it again it’ll be useless. Do not ever save those changes.
Now you’ve made it easy for Social Bookmark Site members to recommend you to their readers, so sit back and relax and wait for the hits to roll in. No, what am I saying? Get blogging something ELSE!
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i did it exactly as you said but instead of pictures i got a line of text like so
::”digg::”tailrank:: . . . etc
Are they live links, or just the text names? Hotlinking should work; it’s what I do here and on raincoaster, so I’m not sure why the images wouldn’t show up on the live post. Can you give me a link to a post you put it in, so I can see? You can make a test page that sits outside the blog if you don’t want to mess up the blog: just call it Test Page or something.
Ah, there’s a glitch with images at WP.com at the moment. Delete the whole thing, make sure you are NOT using text wrap, and try again. It should go through the second time. If you’re using Word, take extra care and, after you’ve copied the whole thing, paste it into Notepad, then copy THAT. This way you just get the code, not any HTML that Word adds in.
http://jugglingcats.wordpress.com/bio/testpage/
i’ve left comments open on this page
the links are live but link to a 404 error page. text only, no actual images
i’ll copy the code onto the page as well so you can see it
Okay, I suspect it’s a wordwrapping issue, but what I’ll do is upload the whole thing as a Word document and get y’all to use that. I’ve used it both ways: Word and Notepad, with no issues, so it could well be a difference in versions. Will check the page and report back.
Update: nope, looks like there was an inadvertent save somewhere in the middle of the process that pasted in the URL of your dashboard where you don’t need it. I left a comment on your page there that should help.
thx
For some reason wordpress through in extra quotation marks all over the place in the code. I had to hand edit them out, but then it worked fine. Thank you for doing so much of the legwork for all of us!!!
Mama Kelly
I wonder why it did that; good on you for figuring it out and working around it! Did you use a Word template, or Notepad? Sometimes Word adds strange formatting you can’t see till you post or look at the code, although for this code it has always worked for me.
Thanks for the code, it’s awesome!
I figured out the issue – when I copied your code into notepad, it kept the wierd quotes instead of standard text quotes in the URLs. I just did a find and replace on ” to ” and it worked great!
Darn…the comments edited my quotes to make them both look the same.
FYI…go through the code once you’ve done the required find and replaces in notepad and you’ll notice the duplicated quotes and which ones are different. Copy that and paste it into the first field in your find and replace – and replace it with a standard quote. Voila! It works!
Thanks! I hadn’t run across that issue before but will keep this in mind. Thanks for letting us know!
This was excellent and clear help, thanks very much.
Thanks. Do double-check the links, though. There are some strange formatting issues that occur sometimes.
[...] want to figure out the codes yourself you might like to check out what Ishmeet, Sunburntkamel or runningthroughrain has to [...]
Sure looks complicated for this novice.
You know what? I found out why people are getting the weird quotation marks problem; it’s this theme! It automatically does the quotes wrong! So use the downloadable Word document: just right-click on it and save it somewhere on your computer and you can use that to make the changes just fine. Let me know how that works for you.
This is excellent. Thanks!
Thanks for this. It works perfectly
You’re welcome! May they bring you many hits!
uh oh..somethings not right with mine…the images are showing up as x’s! what’d i do wrong
oops..duh..i should read comments more carefully..the quote thing worked…THANK YOU FOR THIS EXCELLENT POST!
ditto, great stuff thanks.
My issue was with the inverted commas – open and closed. Had to change them all to neutral inverted commas. Apart from that, works a treat. Many, many thanks for this mate.
S
Ah – and I just read the other comments. Shoulda used the Word doc.
Thanks!
Yes, I have been teaching how to do this for two months now and only just remembered, myself, that you have to use the Word doc. D’oh!
Thanks very much! Works perfectly.
Just one question – how do I reduce the size of the buttons? – Tailrank is sitting on a line of its own.
You have to click on each one and reduce it manually, using the TinyMCE pop-up or hand-coding it. Your theme must have a very narrow column; you might want to put a Shift-Enter halfway through to make two equal lines instead.
thank you very much! great help
Quick question, I’m not to sure why I have a bad URL through StumbleUpon. Also I cant click on Simpy. And help would be excellent, Thanks
Usually it’s because of the weird quotation marks issue. Do the others work okay? Can you give me a link to check out a post of yours where they don’t work, or don’t they work on THIS post? I’m not a Stumbleupon member, so I can’t check it out.
Check my blog out http://tradersedge.wordpress.com/
You should have the problems I’ve mentioned above. All the other links work with the exception of the two above. I’ve changed the quotations also. Thanks for your help!
I’ll sift through the code this weekend and try to have a fix in place by Monday. Thanks for the heads-up!
I figured it out! Sorry for doubting your linking codes ;-(
Thanks for giving me a hand though…
Have a great day!
nice tip….thanks dude…….
Thank you for your help!
After reading all your instructions and the comments – I finally got it to work. Yes it was the bizarre quotes, so I opted to use the work doc.
BTW – are these icons being used enough so that users are familiar with what they are for (please excuse the question – I’m really a newbie). I’ve seen the links on other blogs where they use the title of the icon, instead of the actual icon. Based on that – there are no alts for reddit.gif, fark.png, in your script in case someone else wants to use the text.
People registered with those sites will recognize the icons, for sure. Using the text is more old-fashioned. I’ve got to update the file, as Sunburntkamel has updated his links to now include Facebook, which will be very important as it continues to grow. Look at the membership figures: all others pale in comparison. You can get the new code from his site without waiting for me to update, though:
http://archgfx.net/
I’ll wait for you – as I wouldn’t have a clue what to look for at his site
)
Okay, all updated now. And I took out that posted code that never worked!
Thanks so much, this is brilliant. I’ve been searching for ways to do this easily and quickly! Ryan above (tradersedge) sent me this link.
Question (and this may be due to my newbie status and lack of knowledge): what about Technorati? Why isn’t that one of the links when it’s such a well-known social bookmarking site? Or is it more than that?
Technorati’s not actually a social bookmarking site. It’s a comparative blog ranking. Every post on WordPress.com is automatically picked up by Technorati anyway. If what you want is a way for people to make you one of their Technorati favorites, you can easily grab that code from their site. I don’t find it worth putting in every post, but you might stick it in a widget in the sidebar.
this is great – thanks loads.
actually – the alt tags aren’t working on the logos. why might this be – have checked the code and all looks dandy..?!
Have you checked the suggestions in this thread? Usually it’s an editor problem with the quotation marks. If you use dumb quotation marks instead of smart ones, it should work fine.
Thanks! So great, I did it!
This is amazing! Thank you so much!
Albert @ Headspace
http://thoughtsintime.co.za
now THIS is what I have been hunting for !!!
great work and thanks for sharing !
The Techie Guy
http://thetechieguy.wordpress.com/
By the way: just an idea – in order for you not to by mistake over-right the original template document from above, you can make the doc Read Only and therefore don’t have to worry about it.
To do that : just save the file to your Hard Drive, Right Click on it and tick Read-Only.
Good advice: thanks for that!
Fantastic – thank you so much!
OH FOREAL! If I had a million dollars I’d give it to you right now! I have literally scoured the net the WordPress Forums, the Top WordPress Blogs for weeks days and hours on end trying to find out how to get this friggin stumble and digg on my blog! I have cursed and called people all kinds of idiots. Broken links, html, poor poor direction – OMG! After 2 weeks and I have been up this time for 27 hours I read your instructions and in less than 5 minutes – Viola!
I just bookmarked you, added you to favorites and rss feed.
You Have a Flawless Day, ok – I’m going to bed
VickiLynne
Well then I wish you TWO million dollars. No: TWENTY!
Thanks for the add: unfortunately, this blog is not updated much because my computer is very crashy right now. Perhaps when I can afford another I’ll be able to start contributing more.
thanks man, you’re a lifesaver
thank you that is perfect!
[...] of Literacy is Priceless posts thanks to discovering a how-to post on the subject on the blog Running through the Rain. After discussing my mini accomplishment with a few of my teacher friends, it occurred to me that [...]
Hey Super Star!
Our ‘TailRank’ link isn’t working anymore, what is a girl to do?
I saw that, too. It’s an intermittent error because the file is on a server that’s not always connected, or not always working. You can simply wait till it IS up, copy it, and upload it in your own webspace. In fact, you can do that for all the images if you want to have 100% control.
Then you need to sift through the code and put the new URL of the images in your webspace where the old .gif files were. Make sense?
No and I’m getting a headache thinking of it, sounds complicated?
Can you outline the steps like A B C? I’ve been coming to this page everytime I needed the HTML becuz I couldn’t save it, note/word. (dont laught at me..lol)
So what you’re saying now is like foreign you’re talking a different language. Yet, I would luv to have that 100% absolute control. Could you teach me?
[...] by golly, there is! Here’s all you need to know at this blog post entitled: “social bookmarking links” at the running through rain [...]
Thank you so much for this!
you, sir, are a legend, and the first person who ever explained adding badges in a way i could use (i’m an idiot). thank you, thank you.
now, if i could just think of something worth expressing. is there a short cut?
Unfortunately, there’s no shortcut to content. You’ve just got to pump it out. Or, as someone said in another context, there’s nothing to it: just sit down in front of a keyboard and open a vein.
FYI it’s “ma’am” not sir. But sunburntkamel, who came up with this, IS a sir.
Raincoaster… aside from the “Sir” part – lozenge above hit the nail on the head… FINALLY an explanation I can understand! You are a Star mate! lol
You are a lifesaver and a super-clear communicator, to boot.
Thanks so much!
P.S. I used Word and it worked perfectly.
thanks a lot!
I have created a windows executable that generates the script to append to our posts. No find and replace required. Just enter the post name and post url and a script will be generated that includes most of the social bookmarking sites. Check it out and let me know if it is useful to you.
http://saranyan.wordpress.com/blogging-resources/
-Saran
My sincere gratitude to Raincoaster & sunburntkamel for providing the code and easy-to-understand instructions that allowed me to get these social bookmarking links onto my blog.
I had surfed WordPress and elsewhere looking for something that I could understand and execute. You’ve made it so easy here!
I, too, have noticed the Tailrank link is not working (this morning). I’ll check it out periodically over the next few days. If it seems to be broken more often than not, I suppose I can just go in and remove it from the code.
Once again, many thanks!
This is not a good idea – too much manual work. Check out my blog – I dont have to do it manually – instead I created a plugin. Will be sharing the instructions soon on my blog.
You need to read for comprehension: this is for WordPress.com blogs, which cannot use plugins.
Thanks – perfect. Worked first time
[...] How to add “Share this” social bookmarking links Jump to Comments I want to add links to various social networking sites, such as Facebook, to the bottom of my posts. But there is no add-in available at WordPress.com. However, there is a simple way to add links to del.icio.us, blinklist, furl, digg, gnolia, stumbleupon, simpy, newsvine, reddit, fark and facebook. I found it on the running through rain blog at http://runningthroughrain.wordpress.com/2007/07/15/social-bookmarking-links/. [...]
[...] blinklist, furl, digg, gnolia, stumbleupon, simpy, newsvine, reddit, fark and facebook. I found it here on the running through rain [...]
Thanks very much! It’s everything I dreamed it would be. =D The only question I had is that when someone hovers over an image it only lists the title of the blog in the yellow text box instead of “Digg It: Title” ect, even though the code seems to include the name of the service. I’m sure I could have copied something wrong though.
Thanks again. Been tring to figure out how to do this for a while.
You are a superstar. I owe you another $5 coffee.
Thank you sooooo much!
R
I sorted the problem with the quotes.
For me, it came when adding new links.
Microsoft Word put those quotes at an angle, subtly different from normal.
And it would usually add another (normal) quote to the end of the img line causing the html not to find the image link.
I just then deleted the new quotes, and copied and pasted the normal quotes instead – and voila! It worked no problem.
Thank you!
very cool! thank you very much…
I broke your cardinal rule and used it on a fluff piece..in the interest of practice!! but I can’t get myself to erase it, I’m so proud of it!!
I did go back and use it on my About page which is a very important page…I promise from now on I will use it judiciously!!
thank you very much again!
[...] (1) Social Media November 17, 2008, 9:40 am Filed under: Uncategorized I read an article today about social bookmarking which is quite funny. It tells you that if posting a blog of your [...]
Wow!! COOL!!!! Gee Thanks…!!!! Really!!!!
wb
Thank you so much! Incredibly useful and easy. And it made me realize that I need to write more posts that are interesting to the “general public”…
Works perfectly!
Thanks a lot…
Regards
does anyone know how to mod a link for twitter? I tried using the same
http://www.twitter.com/sharer.php?u= and no luck.
Cheers, that’s ace!
It works like a dream.
Could you help with getting the pay pal widget on my blog?
Have you tried the forum already? There are good instructions there.
I tried those instructions for the paypal widget and it’s a nightmare…I have a very bad looking widget at this point that works…I gave up because I was ready to scream…don’t want to revisit those directions…
Which of the sets of instructions did you follow? There are easily two dozen threads. You make an account, you copy the link to your Donation page, you make a text widget with an image from Paypal and link that image to your Donation page. Those are the basic steps.
This is a great post. Thanks Raincoaster. I installed about 5 widgets on my WordPress before I found one that I like – AddThis. It’s pretty common, so I figure the non-tech-savvy people can’t miss it!
I don’t like Add This for two reasons: one, it’s one more click, so you’ll lose 90% of people who would have followed through (statistically speaking) and two, on WordPress.com you can only install it in your sidebar so most of the referrals will be to your blog as a whole, rather than any specific post.
Thanks – worked great.
[...] be added at the bottom of the post (in html view mode). Here is a good article regarding that: link. It is a really helpful article, but ultimately they ask that you use a findreplace in a text [...]
Great article. I would still rather have the plug-in, but what can you do.
To eliminate the find, replace and template piece I created a web page to do the same:
http://www.perlitalabs.com/Social_Bookmark_WordPress_Builder/url_builder.php?title=Test%20Title&url=http://www.test.com
I am going to use it for my blog from this point forward.
Thanks again.
Actually, I should do another post. Now I’m recommending GetSocial, which is designed for WordPress.com blogs and is much easier to use than a Find and Replace with curly quotes issues. You can find it here:
http://hillelstoler.com/2009/02/26/getsocial-103/
That does look pretty slick. I will have to try… The only drawback seems to be you have to download it. I often post from different computers, so I will have to install it several places.
Hi Raincoaster,
I have updated my little app. Let me know what you think.
http://www.perlitalabs.com/Social_Bookmark_Builder_1_2/Link_Builder.php
Thanks!
[...] The first solution I have run into was copying some code to your posts after modifying it to include your posts URL and title. Yuck! I played a little with this idea and some Javascript though just for the fun of it and came up with a bookmark to put in your browser’s bookmark bar and use when creating new posts on wordpress.com to add a Facebook share link! The bookmark URL should be something like: [...]
Facebook share seems to be ignoring the &t parameter – any ideas?
Hmm, not really. I don’t come up with great ideas; I just pass them along. Have you ensured that you’re using plain text? The only previous problems we’ve had were related to smart quotes and similar issues.
I’m using the following (removed spaces to see if that was messing it up):
http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://peterthomas.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/accuracy/&t=MyCoolTitleHere
Posted the same issue on the WP.com forums.
Thanks
Peter
what about the twitter button?
Twitter hadn’t been invented when the above code was written. Nowadays I use GetSocial.
Is useful. Thanks
This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you so much. I’m new to all of this and your step by step was great. I’ll be looking into get social right now
health and happyness
I found this post while looking to add Stumbleupon button to our blog page.
1> Has any of this info been updated?
2> Do I insert the url for the current day’s blog post or the general url for the blog site… which seems to make more sense. I ask because it wasn’t clear to me in your instructions.
Thanks for your help!
Tom
1> no, I’m using GetSocial now. You can download it or use http://getsociallive.com
2> the current day’s post. If you use the general blog URL you’ll piss off your readers, who are looking for specific post content.
That was so much easier than I thought it would be! Thank you.
You’re welcome. Glad to help.
worked perfectly the first time. you are a frickin’ genius!
Thanks, I can’t take credit. I only point to what other people have done.