Showing Readers What You’re Bookmarking

[ Read all the previous posts in the "Blogging 101 for Pastors" seres here. ]

I surf the Internet pretty often, scanning for great content, posts, lists, whatever. But not everything I bookmark I want to write a whole blog post about.

Often, I just want others to quickly see what I’ve liked and linked to … but the hard part, until now, is finding an easy way to show others what I’m bookmarking.

Pastors, one way you can show your blog readers what you are viewing or bookmarking on the Internet is to use the popular social bookmarking site del.icio.us.

<<<==== Click this cool button I found to go to del.icio.us

Why you should take the time to do this?

Have you seen the vast Internet wasteland of theological junk? Why not give your readers links to sites, articles, resources that you have combed over, or use frequently and trust?

I’ll say it like this:

Bookmarking is one of the best, easiest and fastest ways for pastors to give good resources to their congregations.

Here’s how this could work for a pastor’s blog:

1. Sign up for a del.icio.us account

2. Use your blog or name as the account name — for promotional purposes I use my main site name: churchcommmunicationspro.com

3. Install the del.icio.us "buttons" on your Internet browser — this allows you to easily "bookmark" a site when you see it, follow the directions for this

4. Click on your "settings" link — then under that click "link rolls." A link roll is just a listing of all your bookmarks.

5. Adjust the settings — For my longer bookmark list, I "show" about 100 items with my "notes." This is great for telling your readers what they are looking at, or why you like it or don’t, etc. It’s like a commentary function. I want my readers to see my notes, so click on that option.

6. Copy the code supplied

7. Paste it into a new post or in your template sidebar — or wherever you want your readers to see it. I pasted it into a blog post, then link to it from my right sidebar. Occasionally, in new blog posts, I’ll even put a tag on the end like, "See what I’m bookmarking online" and link to that blog posts (which updates automatically from del.icio.us).

8. Start bookmarking!

SEE THIS IN ACTION: Check out the stuff I’m bookmarking with this feature.

[ Read all the previous posts in the "Blogging 101 for Pastors" seres here. ]

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October 24, 2006 · Filed Under Church Marketing

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