An eHower recently contacted me to tell me that when she first started writing for eHow, she was hit with dozens of requests from other writers, asking her to “digg” their articles.  She says, “At the time, I didn’t know what “digg” was, and thought that all of these writers spoke hippie slang and had bad spelling. ”

Now, of course, she knows what digg is. Chances are that you do, too.  Digg is one of the social bookmarking sites that are used to network socially (you can “friend” other members), and “bookmark” sites or pages that you think others should look at.   Some writers (eHow writers among them) decided to start digging their own articles.  It’s part of their grand plan: Write an article, then digg it and ask other digg friends to digg it, too.

It doesn’t just end with digg.   There are dozens of social bookmarking sites.   Twitter is technically a “micro blogging” platform, meant to update your friends (and your “friends”) with news as to what you’re up to.  Lately, though, it’s become more of a social bookmarking-type site, with people tweeting (posting) link after link on the Twitter pages.   I’ve even known some eHowers who will write X number of articles on eHow, then rapid-fire tweets alerting the world to these articles.

So is it all worth it?  Depends on who you ask, I suppose.   I posed a question in the forum several months back, and found a strong negative correlation:  Heavy social bookmarking was done by those who make very little money on eHow.  The big-earners, on the other hand, told me that they do not indulge in any of the social bookmarking sites.  Maria said that she did it for a while, but found that she makes more money if she dedicates that hour per day to writing quality articles instead of bookmarking on social sites.      Still, there are some who swear by social bookmarking sites, and insist that their earnings would be even more paltry without the social site activity.

Final word: It’s your call.  If you think find and truly believe that engaging in social bookmarking to promote your eHow articles does indeed boost your ratings, then by all means keep it up.   A word to the wise, though:  Digg has started banning members who digg too many of their own articles, so if you plan to use digg (and other social bookmarking sites) JUST to promote your eHow articles, it’s definitely not worth it.