In the last several years, Web 2.0 has become all the rage, and people from around the globe have grabbed on to the tail of this rising star, all of us desiring the same things, recognition, acceptance, and maybe even a little fortune.

An extremely powerful tool that has emerged as a star itself in social media is called “social bookmarking.” A social bookmarking site allows you to “tag” something that is interesting to you. A website, a funny video, a news story, a product review, and of course your own blog or website.

The benefits of marking your website may include recognition from others, which leads to visibility, which may lead to back links, which may lead to search engine positioning, which may lead to sales.

Many newbie marketers however, make costly mistakes when trying to leverage the power of social bookmarks. Here I mention what I believe are the top 3 mistakes many people make when attempting to harness the power of this medium:

1. Leaving out relevant content (AKA: SPAM)

Linking to your blog or website is fine, if you have something to offer, that other people actually want. When you attempt to use social bookmarks however, simply as a way to link back to your site, you are providing no value for the community. Most people will ignore this, and worse yet, it will be considered spam by the social sites and maybe even the search engines. When using social bookmarks, don’t forget about the word “social.”

2. Improperly formatting your tags and anchor text

If you don’t properly “tag” your bookmarks, the search engines won’t find them and you won’t get a link. Learn how to use meta tags and anchor text before you invest the time to join in the social buzz via bookmarks.

3. Only submitting to one or two bookmarking sites.

You can go visit social site link tools (such as AddThis) and if you haven’t noticed it already, your jaw will drop when you see the vast number of social bookmark sites available today. Subscribe to all of them and take some time to become familiar with as many of these sites as possible. The more sites to which you contribute, the more visibility you will have, and the more links you will get.