Are You Stumbling Yet?
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(photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)
As regular readers will probably remember, Gerald made a post at the end of October that was titled 5 Social Media Sites That You Must Explore. In this post, Gerald provided an overview of five popular social media sites (Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Technorati and Plaxo). In addition to discussing all five of these websites, Gerald also promised that a detailed look at each one would eventually be published on this blog.
Since my personal favorite out of these five websites is StumbleUpon, I thought that I would kick off the series of five detailed posts with a look at why you should start stumbling today (if you haven’t already).
So, what exactly makes StumbleUpon such a special social media website? If I had to identify one characteristic of StumbleUpon that really makes it great, it would have to be the level of personalization that it provides to its users. When you first sign up for a StumbleUpon account, you will be asked to provide some basic information about your interests. Once you get everything setup, you can start Stumbling. This involves pressing a Stumble button (which will take you to a random page that matches your interest), and then rating the page you are taken to with a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down (this used to require a Firefox toolbar, but StumbleUpon now allows you to also Stumble from within a web browser). You can rate any webpage you visit with a Thumbs Up or Down, and you can also leave a written review for any page or website you visit. Over time, you will find that as you rate more pages, StumbleUpon will get even better at providing you with content that you are really interested in.
(photo by dannysullivan)
While I’m sure this all sounds great to you, since this is a search engine marketing blog, you are probably asking yourself “how can StumbleUpon bring traffic to my website?” This is a very good question for any Internet marketer to ask, and I have several good answers to provide you with.
Although Digg gets a lot of attention for having the ability to send large amounts of traffic, the problem with Digg is that it will send a big burst of traffic, which will quickly fizzle out after only a couple of days. On the other hand, not only can StumbleUpon send traffic from the beginning, but it can also send a very steady stream of traffic over a long period of time. To give you a real life example, I wrote a blog post that was Stumbled over two months ago, and StumbleUpon is still sending traffic on a daily basis as a result of this one post (in fact, the most recent review was written just five days ago).
In addition to getting traffic flowing organically through StumbleUpon, one really cool feature is the ability to buy advertising. For $0.05 a person, StumbleUpon will insert the piece of content that you want to promote into their natural flow. When a visitor is Stumbling and sees your page, they won’t be aware that it is actually a paid advertisement. In fact, because users can review and Thumb your content, if people like what they see and rate it well, you can actually begin to attract organic StumbleUpon visitors instead of only paid visitors.
(photo by Si1very)
From all of the reading I have done (and personal experience), you don’t need to waste your time trying to game StumbleUpon. Since it provides lots of networking features (including friends, messaging and profiles), you can build up a strong StumbleUpon network by being active and genuine with other people who are interested in the content you are trying to promote. When you combine this with creating some interesting pieces of content, you will definitely be able to see an increase in traffic coming from StumbleUpon.
If you need to kick start or expand your StumbleUpon network, feel free to connect with Gerald or myself.
Whether you just started using StumbleUpon or have been using it for quite some time, please leave a comment below and tell us about your experiences with it so far!
[tags]StumbleUpon[/tags]
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Tags: stumbleupon
wniizzati
Perri aka @betheb...
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Ann Smarty
Kerry Rego
hey, nice article… i didn’t know SU offers advertising. now i know
manilenio’s last blog post..Caramoan Peninsula
Great Article, but I don’t think that SU users are worth paying $0.05 for each! They use SU like a remote control, if someone accidentally skips over your page, you simply lose the money and the visitor!
Abdul’s last blog post..A Goodbye Kiss from Iraq
Abdul,
While $0.05 per visitor is higher than you will pay with some programs, you have to keep in mind the potential “organic Stumble effect,” which could result in you getting more visitors than you paid for (as long as you have great content).
Good point there is no reason to try and game Stumble.
They kick you off!
Why risk it?
Jordan Pearce’s last blog post..Friday Social – Networking
This is an interesting article, but it doesn’t really tell you how to use SU effectively with others. For instance, I signed on about six months ago. Would click on the SU icon, and that would take me to a site for whatever reason I didn’t quite understand (Thanks. You explained that here.). I wanted to Stumble my own site to see what happened. Wasn’t quite sure if I did that right.
I did that a few times with other sites I wanted to help out. I didn’t see any improvement on my end, so I forgot about it.
Then, recently, I Stumbled someone’s site again, and hit the Like button. A registration page came up that I hadn’t seen before, which made me think I’d been Stumbling wrong the whole time.
Whatever the case may be, I’ve had recent Stumbles on my travel blog by some friends who I reciprocated with, and I’m not seeing an increase in traffic yet.
So, I guess, I still don’t get it. I’ll keep trying, but is there a tutorial somewhere on line that tells more?
Thanks!
Jackie Dishner
Jackie Dishner’s last blog post..Monday Funday: McDonald’s and its teal arches
Jackie,
First let me say thank you and we sincerely appreciate your taking the time to comment, however in the future please do not post links in your comment unless it is directly related to the post at hand. There is already a link in your name and the link to your last article in the comment love at the bottom. Anything more than that may be considered spam by some people.
That being said please allow me to answer your question(s).
The best tutorial for StumbleUpon is other stumblers. It is a social platform so it’s important that you do just that and become social. Interact with other stumblers. You can ask them questions, share websites with them, and as time goes on you will start to develop an actual circle of SU friends. That’s what it’s all about. You can’t just sign up and submit your website and expect to see results.
Feel free to add me Gerald Weber and I’ll be glad to help.
Jackie,
Since it seems like you have some basic questions, I would check out the StumbleUpon help section:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/help/
Great Article…
Chuck,
Hey how have you been man? How is the new exciting web 2.0 company going?
Let me know once it’s released etc.
Thanks.
Gerald Weber’s last blog post..Are You Stumbling Yet?
I have opened my stumbleupon account nearly 7 month ago but i must say I heveant been as active as I should be. This a great post and reminder to me to get back to it and oh i never knew about advertising. Cool.
Salwa’s last blog post..Why Your Blog Design is so Important
Thing is I find Stumble and Digg traffic similar in that it very rarely “sticks.” People come to check out a site, briefly browse, then move on. Good for the ego to see traffic improve but it rarely converts into anything.
SEO Wordsmith’s last blog post..Reviews of Easy Cash Contests & Dennis Edell.com
You may find these two articles to be of interest:
http://socialmediatrader.com/how-to-convert-stumbleupon-users-to-regular-visitors/
http://www.invesp.com/blog/conversion-optimization/how-to-increase-stumbleupon-campaign-conversion-rate-from-75-to-3787-in-one-day.html
One of the key points is to make sure you take a minute to find the right category for the page you’re stumbling…otherwise it may never be seen by your target anyway.
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..$100 First Prize! The *Best Blog Review Contest* Is In Full Effect!
Hello my name is Matt, and I am fast becoming a Stumble addict.
There, I feel better now.
Matt
Matt | Small Biz Bee’s last blog post..Will Big Business Ruin Twitter?
Hey great post explaining stumbleupon. Stumble is one of the greatest ways to get traffic. I’ve gotten thousands of hits from it, and like you said it continues to give, it’s not just a one time thing. And if you have lots of friends, you can send it to them, and get more stumbles that way. i can’t wait for the other four parts!
How to Blog’s last blog post..Blog Review: EduBook.com
Thanks for this post reviewing SU. I’ve only been using it for a few weeks now but from the start, I took the time to put in the basic info on my interests. I’ve been quite impressed with the pages I’ve stumbled so far.
I just followed a link a further up in the comments to the SU Help and found that quite useful as well, e.g. I learned more about Friends and Subscribers there.
techandlife’s last blog post..Essential software: photo editing, organizing and screen capture
Techandlife
Glad you found Tyler’s post useful and informative. Be sure to add us both as friends there and happy stumbles!
Gerald Weber’s last blog post..Round Out Your Social Networking Portfolio…With Your OWN Social Network
I will prefer making a genuine attempt to get traffic from SU, Why to drive traffic via paying when you can get more traffic by socializing with one network group…
and do remember a guy who is active on Su, in 75 cases he will be on DIgg/Reddit/Mixx!!!
p@r@noid’s last blog post..How to give a fake busy look to your Windows Desktop?
Good point. Most of the time I find Stumblers and on multiple other platforms so it’s a good way to connect with others across multiple platforms. Very true.
Gerald Weber’s last blog post..Gerald Weber Dancing with the Elves
Gerald,
Sorry for posting the link. Didn’t know that was taboo.
Tyler,
Thanks for the links. It seemed to me that you could overdo SU. I knew someone who wanted his coworkers to Stumble every post he wrote. And he said he’d do the same. That was my intro to SU, and I didn’t think that would work well after a while. Plus, who writes a great post every time?! Not likely to happen.
So thanks for the links; I’ll read more about this before proceeding any further. It’s just that people who’ve told me to do it seemed to think it was the secret to building traffic, and I didn’t see that happening for me. I don’t really get it. I’ll read more.
There’s so much to learn about the social network technology, as well as the etiquette.
All my best,
Jackie
Jackie,
Your thinking on the right track. You don’t want to join StumbleUpon and just start smart bombing your own links. You won’t see results that way. You have to genuinely participate in the in the StumbleUpon community, make some friends etc. In other words use SU as it is intended to be used. You will also discover some great web content along the way.
Once you have been active in the community and have some friends others will have no problem occasionally Stumbling and reviewing some of your articles. However if you do come across as over the top and spammy not only will you not have too many friends but you may very well get kicked off the platform. It’s OK to self promote some but just don’t overdo it.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Let us know if you have any other questions. Have a great new year.
Gerald Weber’s last blog post..Is Your Captcha Killing Your Business?
Great post indeed, sure stumble upon can be used as a tool to get lots of traffic, but 0.05$ is really higher. Anyways thanks for such an informative article.
spellathon’s last blog post..What Women Want?
Spellathon,
I tend to agree with you. Not sure I would pay .05 a view for Su traffic. Shhhh don’t tell Stumble I said that.
StumbleUpon is one of my favorite sites. I had joined SU just 3 months back..and I see continuous traffic to my blog. I am much more comfortable with SU than other social sites.
I usually do not comment on blog posts but I found this quite interesting, so here goes. Thanks! Regards, P.