I'm sure many of you have on your own blog or have seen blogs with links to some of the social media sites either after their posts or before them. These can make it easier for people to submit or bookmark your site.

If you use FeedBurner for your feed, they offer their 'FeedFlare' to make it easier to put these links in both your feed and on your actual blog. I still use FeedFlare for my feed, but I didn't like the formatting and some other things about the code they generate for you to use on your blog. There are plugins to do this with too - but the one I tried anyway - didn't give me as much control of the formatting that I wanted either.

I eventually just found the code to use for the link from each of the sites I was interested in and hand coded the whole thing so I could make it look how I wanted it to.

Social media sites
There are many, many social media voting and bookmarking sites, but many of them are not used too much or are not relevant to my blog's topic. Based on some reading I've done, I've narrowed it down to just a few to use on my blog:

• StumbleUpon

- because many people use it and get traffic from it.

• Kirtsy

- because it is relevant to a blog for women.

• Delicious

- it's been recommended to use it and easier to do well in than Digg

• Reddit

- same as Delicious

• Digg

- because, well, everyone seems to have a link to it and some of my posts could do well there if I got enough Diggs.

The code I use
While I liked the small icons I saw on many blogs, I think they can be confusing sometimes - I forget which site goes with which image. I wanted mine to include both the name of the site and the small icon at the bottom of each post. FeedFlare didn't do it that way and neither did Sociable (at least I couldn't figure out how to make it do it this way).

I use the following code at the bottom of each of my posts:

<p class="smallcenterbold"> <a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>&title=< ?php the_title(); ?>">Stumble: <img<br /> src="http://cdn.stumble-upon.com/images/16x16_su_round.gif"<br /> border="0"/></a> <br /> <a href="http://www.kirtsy.com/submit.php?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>">Kirtsy: <img src="http://www.kirtsy.com/badges/kirtsy_addicon.gif" mce_src="http://www.kirtsy.com/badges/kirtsy_addicon.gif"<br /> style="border:0" alt="add to kirtsy" /></a> <br /> <a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>&title=< ?php the_title(); ?>">delicious: <img<br /> src="http://www.ideasforwomen.com/graphics/delicious.med.gif"<br /> border="0" /></a> <br /> <a href="http://reddit.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>&title=< ?php the_title(); ?>">reddit: <img<br /> src="http://www.ideasforwomen.com/graphics/reddit.png" border="0"<br /> /></a> <br /> <a href="http://digg.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink(); ?>&title=<<br /> ?php the_title(); ?>">Digg: <img<br /> src="http://www.ideasforwomen.com/graphics/digg.png" border="0"<br /> /></a> <br /> <mce:script src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/IdeasForWomenNewsBlog?i=<?php the_permalink() ?><!-- " type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"> // --></mce:script> </p> <p>

You can style the paragraph tags to look however you want them to look. I center mine and keep the text small.

This code goes into the index.php file of your theme right after the div with class="storycontent" closes.

I also wanted something shorter and simpler to put at the beginning of my posts that uses just the icons. I figure this might be easier for people in a hurry and who are really familiar with all the icons used:

</p> <p class="smallcenterbold"> <a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>&title=< ?php the_title(); ?>"><img<br /> src="http://cdn.stumble-upon.com/images/16x16_su_round.gif"<br /> border="0"/></a> <br /> <a href="http://www.kirtsy.com/submit.php?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>"><img src="http://www.kirtsy.com/badges/kirtsy_addicon.gif" mce_src="http://www.kirtsy.com/badges/kirtsy_addicon.gif"<br /> style="border:0" alt="add to kirtsy" /></a> <br /> <a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>&title=< ?php the_title(); ?>"><img<br /> src="http://www.ideasforwomen.com/graphics/delicious.med.gif"<br /> border="0" /></a> <br /> <a href="http://reddit.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>&title=< ?php the_title(); ?>"><img<br /> src="http://www.ideasforwomen.com/graphics/reddit.png" border="0"<br /> /></a> <br /> <a href="http://digg.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink(); ?>&title=<<br /> ?php the_title(); ?>"><img<br /> src="http://www.ideasforwomen.com/graphics/digg.png" border="0"<br /> /></a>  </p> <p>

This code goes in the index.php page of your theme right after the following code:

<br /> <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark">< ?php the_title(); ?></a><br />

The exact placement of the code may change depending upon the theme you use and of course where you want to put it. This is something you can play around with, try it different ways, until you get it where you want it and how you want it to look!

This social media tool reviewer doesn't critique tools, but observes them objectively with the goal of helping readers make money online.

As mentioned in a recent Twitter status update, "I try out every tool. I'm not against any of them. Is it really a big deal?"

It is indeed a big deal when you're in such a big niche.

Social media and social media marketing have become buzz words over the past few years and people from tech geeks to the uber chic have come across a social media enabled tool, even if they didn't know what it was called.

Charnita's challenge in the months to come will be to differentiate her site from those of other social media enthusiasts. There are three basic ways to do this which are content, traffic and monetization.

Content is the first and best to set yourself apart in a big niche or establish yourself as the dominant player in a newer niche. Charnita writes several times per week to update readers on "Cool Tools." With a design layout that screams social media at every turn, Charnita demonstrates her credibility quickly.

Traffic peaks and valleys can often happen when relying on your own social media participation for visitors. As soon as you take a day off, your traffic suffers. A consideration may be to include some sticky content (like a regular series) or to co-host a community on one or more social networks. Either option will allow for the occasional business or leisure trip while generating growing traffic over time.

Monetization comes after both the content and qualified traffic but once both are in place, generating sustaining revenue is much easier. With spaces for sponsors and featured advertisers, Charnita may want to consider adding in-depth reviews with affiliate links - or other monetization option - to supplement the current banner icons.

With the basics laid down, Charnita is poised to become a social media tool critic on par with the best movie reviewers. Once a niche is chosen and a target market considered, it will be easy to differentiate both Charnita and the Social Web Tools blog.

STATS
Blog Name: Social Web Tools
Blog URL: http://socialwebtools.info/
Blogger(s): Charnita
Age: 3 months
Feed: http://socialwebtools.info/feed/