F) How to Market on Collaborative Directories
These directories are compiled with recommended sites or content maintained by online volunteers.
- Wikipedia: an online reference/dictionary where the content is created by volunteers.
- Open Directory Project: the oldest human-edited directory of websites.
- Prefound: a directory of shared favorite sites from a wide variety of categories.
- Zimbio: a directory of fed content from external and internal blogs and shared favorites.
Associated Marketing Strategy
Each of the above sites has varying characteristics that should be considered separately when marketing:
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Wikipedia: check to see if your company name is already in the Wikipedia index. If it is make certain that the link to your website is active and the content within the profile is correct. If a profile for your company is not online yet then sign up with Wikipedia and create a profile while making sure to provide an encyclopedic viewpoint. Wikipedia discusses in detail the type of writing that will be flagged as spam so don’t waste your time being promotional because your write up is likely to be flagged as spam or removed if you are. What you want is a link to your website from Wikipedia and a profile that properly describes your offering and company history. You can add links to external websites but do so sparingly.
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Open Directory Project (ODP): check www.dmoz.org for your website listing by typing in your company name or the name that you are most likely to be listed under. If you find your site listed make certain the listing is accurate. If you do not find your site listed then you need to submit it by finding the most appropriate category (only one is generally allowed per URL) and submit your listing via the “Suggest URL” link at the top of the page. If you need to make an alteration use the “update listing” link where you will have to explain the reasons for the change – they have to be good to have any chance of success. I also suggest checking for a “weblogs” or “newsletters” category for your industry where you can separately submit your blog(s) and newsletter(s). Links from the ODP are useful because they are often well indexed by search engines and offer direct unblocked links to your website.
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Prefound: create an account and document sites and content related to your profession that you find particularly interesting. Befriend users within Prefound community that regularly contribute to categories related to your industry. When you write a blog and you believe it has enough merit to benefit other users then ask others within your community to consider your content for addition; it is generally not a good idea to add your own content but on occasion, if your content is extremely relevant I see no reason to avoid doing so.
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Zimbio: while setting up your account you will be prompted to enter the URL of your own blog. Once you have completed the setup you will have access to a list of your recent blogs which you can then, one by one, categorize into their various ‘wikizines’ which are essentially topic-focused pages within Zimbio. Now, don’t just use Zimbio to publish your own work but try to find other great content out there which adds value to the site. There are easy “add to Zimbio” buttons you can add to your various browsers to populate your profile with new content regularly. If you create a clean mix of both external and personal content you will have a far higher chance of creating a useful profile at Zimbio.
»» Please Continue to "Video Sharing Sites"
OR choose from the following directory:
- Social Networking Sites
- Business Networking Sites
- Social Bookmarking Sites
- Content Voting Sites
- News Sharing Sites
- Collaborative Directories
- Video Sharing Sites, and
- Photo Sharing Sites
You can also download our PDF called "Do it Yourself Social Media Marketing" created June 27th, 2007. Please note, any changes or updates that have occured on our website since then may not be reflected in this document.
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