Purpose-Built del.icio.us Pages Explained

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site that allows you to save your favorite Web sites and blogs, comment on them, tag them, and share them with others.

When you create your del.icio.us account, the link to your page will look something like this: http://del.icio.us/your.account, where “your.account” is the username you choose when you create your account.

When you add sites to your account, you enter the URL, a description, and a series of tags. These tags are what allow us to create “purpose-built del.icio.us pages.”

For every site you “tag” with a certain term, a link is created that looks like this: http://del.icio.us/your.account/tag
Now you have a link to all of the sites you have saved and “tagged” with that particular term. These are purpose-built del.icio.us pages.

So, rather than tagging your favorite sites blindly, think about how you might tag them intentionally to create your own purpose-built pages that will contain a collection of related sites. For instance, you could create links to several pages like this:

• del.icio.us/your.account (link to main page)
• del.icio.us/your.account/public.relations
• del.icio.us/your.account/client.name
• del.icio.us/your.account/competition
• del.icio.us/your.account/book.title
• del.icio.us/your.account/author.name

So, what are these pages good for, you ask? The best way to answer that question is with an example…

Dalton Publishing

Here is a link to Dalton Publishing’s del.icio.us page:

http://del.icio.us/dalton.publishing

The page may seem to be a hodge-podge of links, but, by using their tags wisely, here is how Dalton Publishing utilizes the purpose-built pages that are generated from the account:

Social Media Newsrooms

On the social media newsrooms they create for their authors, Dalton Publishing lists the relevant purpose-built pages for that author and/or book:

• This purpose-built page: http://del.icio.us/dalton.publishing/puresoapbox on this author’s newsroom: https://socialmediapower.com/puresoapbox/
• This purpose-built page: http://del.icio.us/dalton.publishing/joeoconnell on this author’s newsroom: http://joeoconnellnewsroom.com/
• This purpose-built page: http://del.icio.us/dalton.publishing/robertstikmanz on this author’s newsroom: https://socialmediapower.com/hiddenlandsofnod/

So, for example, when a visitor clicks on the “puresoapbox” del.icio.us page (http://del.icio.us/dalton.publishing/puresoapbox) from that author’s newsroom, they will be taken to a list of saved sites on Dalton Publishing’s del.icio.us account that have been tagged with the term “puresoapbox” as well as for the author terms “joeoconnell” and “robertstikmanz.”

Social Media News Releases

Dalton Publishing uses purpose-built del.icio.us pages in the body of their social media news releases like these:

• http://owenegerton.socialmediapower.com/?p=54
• http://joeoconnell.socialmediapower.com/?p=21

All of Dalton’s authors could also take advantage of these “pages” by simply adding the links to their own sites or blogs.

Other Industries

This example demonstrates how a publishing company might use purpose-built pages. How you use such pages will depend on your industry. Brand-conscious companies might want to save and tag sites or blog posts that demonstrate their brand awareness, where service companies might want to create pages that list specific news coverage, or even pages listing discussions about their competition.

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Copyright 2008 by Deltina Hay. All rights reserved.
Deltina Hay is the principal of Dalton Publishing and Social Media Power