There are only a couple of Social Bookmarking sites that deserve your attention. Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Del.icio.us and YouTube are the only social bookmarking sites you should focus on. Yes, although YouTube is primarily a video sharing site, it can also be a source of incredible traffic as well as high quality backlinks.

Most of these sites will give you a “nofollow” backlink but they still help you in Google search result rankings and if used cleverly, they can bring thousands of visitors to your article. There are slight differences between these sites but recommended strategy of using them for promotion is same for all.

First rule of social bookmarking is to avoid exclusively posting links to your articles. Try to post at least 5 – 6 links to interesting sites for every link to your own article. Remember, Sharing is Caring, and it will help you avoid being marked as a spammer.

Second rule of social bookmarking is to use categories. Each social bookmarking site has its own category system and if you start posting links to wrong categories, you will find yourself banned as a spammer. Reddit is especially famous for overreacting to posts in wrong categories (sub-reddits).

Third rule of social bookmarking is to participate in the community. Browse links other people have submitted, vote for those you like and comment on those that attract your attention. When you are sufficiently impressed or intrigued with some submission, start following the original submitter.

Socializing and building up your positive Karma is one of the easiest ways of increasing your own following and building up your reputation.

There are many other social bookmarking sites, but you can achieve amazing results by using only the ones I mentioned. For others, it is much easier to use automated submission tools.