As a matter of fact, if you get SquidUtils, it's got the AddThis button right on the Squidoo Advanced Dashboard. So yeah, a lot of Squidoo members know about AddThis -- though not all of them, by any means!

The only thing is that social promotion is a beginner's approach to getting web traffic. It tends to provide a quick temporary burst of traffic, which can be useful, but you have to participate in social networking sites continually to keep getting more visitors.

Adding your link on a few of those sites does get you on the search engine crawlers' map, but there are other ways to do that (the Discovery Tool on a Squidoo lens). What it doesn't do is boost your search engine standings, because many social networking sites set those links nofollow or block them from being crawled by search engines. Even if they don't, most search engines notice where links come from. Search engine designers know that people use those sites for self-promotion. Since Google (for example) is trying to give more weight to links as a form of genuine recommendation from somebody else, it is likely (although I haven't done extensive testing to prove it) that those links do not pass much SEO value for Google. I don't know how MSN and Yahoo treat them...they seem a little more gullible. However all the SEO professionals I've read seem to dismiss social networking as of limited or no value for getting search engines to rank your webpage well.

On the other hand, as you say, social networking sites are social outreach. Search engines may not assign much value to links placed on social media sites.  But people may see your links and follow them. That means you have to do something to attract people on social networking sites. There are a gazillion folks using those sites for self-promotion. Dropping a link there is not enough. You have to be an active member of the community, and attract followers who are willing to follow your links.

And on the third hand, many of those websites have rules against self-promotion, and will ban you or block you if they detect you using them in that way (e.g. Digg and StumbleUpon).

Last edited by Greekgeek (03/22/2009 1:00 pm)

I've seen bloggers argue that too many social bookmarking icons is almost worse than none: too many choices just looks like a lot of work or a lot of shameless self-promotion "Market my stuff for me!" Whereas just a few select bookmarking links get more clicks.

Recently I've created a widget for my guestbooks encouraging just TWO ways to promote the lens off-Squidoo: a StumbleUpon and Twitter link -- and two on-site ways, Favorite and Rate. (I'd put email, because I bet that's a better lensrank boost, but rating and favoriting are quicker and easier to do).

It seems to be working. I haven't had many stumbles and twits, but I've had some, whereas before I had none. And I'm getting more ratings and favorites.