5 Ways Marketers Can Use Google's New Bookmark Lists

This week, Google made yet another step into the social media world by making its bookmarks social. While Google's bookmark feature may still be flying under the radar of most users, its new list feature creates interesting collaborative opportunities for marketers. Users add bookmarks to Google by either using the Google Tool Bar or the star feature in search results. It is likely that some of you may have saved bookmarks in your web browser, but not online. Why would you want to save them on the web with Google?

These are two key reasons for using online bookmarks: (1)They can be accessed from an computer or device that connects to the internet. (2)They are on the web means they can also be social.

What do Lists Have to do With it?

Whether you do it on the web or in a browser, it is likely that we have all bookmarked articles and found it to be useful when needing to find information quickly. Why do bookmark lists matter to marketers?

Lists help organize content and help it to be more social. Lists also create a common interest that allows people to more easily collaborate around a topic by grouping information into one place. We are starting to see lists pop up in all types of social networks on the web, most recently lists were a major feature addition for Twitter.

The powerful thing about really big web services like Google and Facebook is that becasue so many people use them, they have the critical mass to make collaboration happen.

5 Marketing Applications of Google Bookmark Lists

1. Creating a Real-time Corporate Newsroom - The days of sending out boring press releases are quickly fading. The problem is that companies still need ways to communicate news and events. Customers and prospects want to know if you have experts being interviewed in industry publications or what other people outside of your organization say about your product. Creating a list of articles that feature your company is an easy way to have an easy-to-update system for saving and viewing all of your news and information online. Check out a sample using HubSpot.

2. Crowdsource Marketing Ideas - Two heads are better than one right? If so, then letting a group of internal staff or customers share links about marketing examples they like or other ideas may create a valuable opportunity for creative thinking. E-mail isn't the right tool for collecting input from a large group. Bookmark lists create a simple page similar to a wiki that allows team members to share links and ideas for future activities.

3. Write Blog Articles Easier - Blogging is a great inbound marketing tool, but it can sometimes take a while to get the right text with the correct links posted. Create a bookmark list for each blog post you are planning to write and use the lists to gather all of the links you need to include in your post. This helps to save time and provides a better way to organize thoughts. You could even link to your bookmark lists in your blog post as a resource page that includes all the links and information used to put the blog post together, which creates added value for the user.

4. Promote Brand Advocates - Customers who support your brand and products online can be a huge driving force for word-of-mouth credibility. One thing that brand advocates love is recognition by the company they love. Using lists to create pages praising top brand advocates can be a powerful way to draw more support and create healthy competition amongst customers. For example, build a list to recognize some of the top bloggers in your industry. This list will make the bloggers feel like they have influence in the industry, but it will also win your organization credibility and goodwill for acknowledging their hard work.

5. Create Thought Leadership - A bookmark list is merely an organized collection of links that your have read. When a company creates a bookmark list it builds credibility by becoming and industry curator of knowledge and information. Think of a bookmark list as a "What We Are Reading" page for a business. As employees and executives bookmark credible links the aggregation of all of this knowledge will portray your organization as one that is about learning and is tapped into the pulse of the industry.

While this posts was focused on Google lists these ideas work for many different social platforms that use lists.

How do you use lists?