Feb 05

Using StumbleUpon: Top 5 User Guides

Beginner's Track, Social Media, Social Media Classroom 11 Comments »

picture credit to Xarj.net

StumbleUpon is one of those quiet, behind the scenes social networking sites that can drive an amazing amount of traffic to your site and help you build up some great relationships. I’ve known people who actually ended up getting jobs simply by connecting with the right people on the site.

If you’re new to StumbleUpon, it can be rather confusing. It isn’t nearly as straightforward as, say, Twitter, so you’ll need to make sure you understand what you’re doing if you want to really succeed there. Recent changes in some of the policies on the network have caused problems with many users, but overall, it’s still a very useful networking option.

I’ve scanned the internet for recent guides on how to use StumbleUpon successfully and these are the five best ones that I found. Whether you are new to the stumbling scene or have some experience under your belt but could use a little more help, these articles will be very useful. If you have any other great resources, I would love to hear about them!

1. StumbleUpon Etiquette Guide and Best Practices

From Techipedia, this is a very comprehensive article on how to behave yourself on StumbleUpon. Tamar shares her insights on how to be a good stumbler and not annoy everyone who befriends you. All of her points are excellent and everyone using StumbleUpon needs to read this article.

2. How to Get Traffic from StumbleUpon

Short and to the point, this article tells you precisely how to boost your traffic coming in from StumbleUpon. Some of the ideas are what you’ll hear anywhere, but there are a number that are quite useful. Unlike some articles, this one is quite succint, making it easy to read even when you’re short on time.

3. A Travel Blogger’s Guide to Using StumbleUpon

If you’re sick of reading about social networks on SEO blogs, this is a refreshing change! Adam is a young man interested in traveling, who wrote this post on not only how to start up with SU, but how to use it to promote your website, whatever that may be. There are some good, straightforward tips here that beginners and not-so-beginners can use.

4. 3 Essential Tricks to Do with StumbleUpon Toolbar

If you’re getting frustrated with StumbleUpon, this post offers some interesting insights into what you can do to make the entire process easier. There are just three tips, but these are good ones!

5. How to Get Started with StumbleUpon

This is a very long blog post, but well worth the read. Dave Saunders takes you through everything you need to know to get started and then some with this popular social media network. From signing in to changing your password and making friends, it’s all here! Be aware that this is a slightly older post, but I still feel it is a good one for beginners.

What are your tips for using StumbleUpon?

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Nov 28

StumbleUpon and Your Business

Social Media Classroom, Social Media for Business 6 Comments »
StimbleUpon

StumbleUpon for your business

At first glance, StumbleUpon doesn’t seem like it’s much use for the average business owner. However, it can be insanely useful if you now how to leverage it and can drive a lot of traffic.  I personally get a lot of quality readers and I’ve heard many other friends who get most of their traffic from this site.  You will need to make sure that you aren’t just spamming, though, since StumbleUpon users are very aware of this and tend to give a thumbs down to anyone who has repeatedly submitted their own website or who stumbles content of obviously poor quality.

What else can you do to make sure that your business is getting noticed on StumbleUpon?

Set up a blog. This allows you to have fresh content on a continual basis for new stumbles. After all, each person can only give your webpage one thumbs up, but if you are constantly turning out great content, then you will be able to get the same people, fans, stumbling your content over and over.

Create quality content. Of course, if you have nothing of importance to blog about, no one will be giving you any thumbs up. That means your blog has to be full of interesting and useful information  . . . but truth be told, it should be that even if you aren’t looking for traffic from SU. Make sure that each post is crafted to give something to the reader, NOT just to get your keywords out there.  This is a very common mistake that people tend to make when starting a business blog. Rather than turn it into something useful, they try to make it search engine friendly and forget to write for human beings.

With StumbleUpon, what you write is very important since it makes all the difference as to whether people will like it or not. If they don’t, you won’t get any stumbles.

Finally, you need to network. Like other social media sites, StumbleUpon is designed for connecting with others. You should befriend people who are interested in specific niches that also interest you, as well as people who might be interested in your products.

Just having friends isn’t enough though. You’ll need to go stumble some of their pages, leave comments for them and make sure that you share websites of interest with them when you find something they might be interested in. This is the social part of the network. Without the connections, you can only bookmark your own stuff and no one else will care or give it a thumbs up. However, having friends means that your blog can easily be stumbled over and over, driving traffic and views up. It has to be worth seeing, though.

All of these pieces tie in together. You have to have friends, but you also need great content if you want those friends to stick around and stumble you. Without the blog it is much more difficult to build up the levels of traffic that you want for your business website. Once you have all the pieces of the puzzle, you will begin to see success.

What else works for you to bring good traffic and quality readers?

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Sep 15

Choosing the Right Social Media Platform

Beginner's Track 3 Comments »
Photo Credit: Liz Danzico

Photo Credit: Liz Danzico

There are hundreds of social media sites available. Some of them are here only for a short time, while others have been around for a while. Even if you narrow things down to the most popular social media sites online right now, you still have a pretty long list, so how are you supposed to know which one to use? Where would your marketing efforts be best used? No one can be active on every site, so you’ll want to select just a handful, even as few as 2 or 3, to be active on.

What should you look for in a social media platform? Here are a few tips to get you started.

Is it well-used? While getting in on the ground floor can be good, the less traffic a site receives, the less the benefit to you, the user. This creates a bit of a problem for new social media sites . . . they need the traffic to become successful, but need to be successful in order to get the traffic. Keep in mind that you want as many eyes as possible on your links, so finding social media networks that offer a large number of users is going to benefit your business more.

How relevant is it? Some social networking sites are aimed at very different groups. For example, Digg is mostly used by college age males. While it may be a great source of traffic, that traffic might not be as targeted as you like, if you are promoting, say baby products. Check out the target audience of each social networking site that you are considering before making a decision. Niche traffic is often more valuable than waves of completely unrelated traffic.

Is current content of good value? It’s no use promoting your products or site on a social media network that is best known for lousy content. Everyone will simply assume that your site is the same and it will be ignored. Stick to sites that are lauded for their high quality content, be sure to live up to those standards and you will see interest in your business. A well-designed and moderated social media network will offer the best possible option for marketing your business.

Are you comfortable with it? This is the most important question in the end. If you find a social media site awkward or confusing to use, chances are you won’t be doing enough networking there. Instead, stick to sites that you enjoy and see more benefits from consistent networking.

Choosing just a few out of the many, many social media sites out there is not an easy task. You’ll need to do a little research, check out the target audience and find out just how effective each site is before considering it. If you’re strapped for time, then opt for one of the handful of very popular sites, like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon.

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