***UPDATE*** June 17, 2007- I've now added a basic guide to StumbleUpon for beginners.
My recent post on the Quebec City wall murals drew a lot of attention from StumbleUpon and its members. Thank you, Nathan at Ubertramp, for the initial thumbs up. Over a 5 day period, that post alone received over 20,000 pageviews. Wow. Did I say thank you, Nathan?
If you have a blog, and haven't tried StumbleUpon, I suggest you check it out. Stumble your favorite articles, join groups that share your interest, and when you see other members with interesting pages, add them as friends. It's also important to increase your fan base so the articles you stumble have more exposure. For more information, Dosh Dosh has a good article with tips on how to use StumbleUpon to drive massive traffic to your site.
If you don't have a blog, you should still check it out. It's a fun way to surf the web, and meet other people with similar interests. The web pages that show up when you stumble have been given the thumbs up by other viewers, so they are usually from better quality sites. When you find a site or specific page you like, be sure to give it your own thumbs up. If another member has pages that interest you, add them as a friend so their favorites will show up when you hit the Stumble! button. A word of warning: be prepared to spend some time at your computer because it can be addicting.
In my sidebar, I have a StumbleUpon button that you can click to see pages and sites that I think are interesting. If you like what you see, consider adding me as a friend.
*the picture above is me visiting with Samuel de Champlain at the Quebec City Mural.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
The Power of StumbleUpon
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12 comments:
I definitely second SU as a great traffic generator. Their traffic comes in waves and I've found the best and most effective way to use it is to interact with the SU community as much as possible. Provide your own reviews and rate any new sites you visit that you really like (or don't like).
Great tip, Stacy.
Hi Mike, I'm bad about rating the sites I don't like, even though I know that it's important. I think it makes me nervous.
I would love to see the sites you've stumble, though. How do I find you?
Good post, Stacey. As we discussed before, the real beauty of it lays in the new sites that this institution allows us to discover. Mind you, 20,000 page views in a week for 1 post is a pretty pleasant aside, too ;-)
I really try to 'thumb up' sites/pages that I have enjoyed - a show of gratitude, almost. I, like you, am pretty poor at 'thumbing down' sites that don't appeal, after all its nice to be nice and, although I may not like something, I guess it doesn't mean that noone else will either. I feel that disapproving will mean less exposure for someones site and less traffic. Its nice to be nice to fellow bloggers....including Mike the Meanie Stumblemeister! LOL.
Hi Stacy, Thanks for the post. I am very new to the stumbleupon scene, but have been getting a significant amount of traffic from it lately, thanks in large to your submissions of some of my posts (THANK YOU!). It does seem like a very cool interface though, and a great way to get added exposure. I look forward to becoming a more active user in the coming weeks... It IS really addictive.
Thank you, Nath. After our conversation about StumbleUpon, and seeing how many visitors it sent my way, I hoped a post about it might help others.
Rob, I'm so glad my thumbs up to your posts sent you some traffic. You have a lot of great information on your site, and I'm glad other people are seeing it.
Hi Stacy,
The smile on Samuel's face just got broader. He looks so honoured to be in your company!
When life gets a little less busy than it is at the moment (see email) I'll check out DoshDosh's guide.
Cheers
David
No worries, David. (You are rubbing off on me!) When you have time to play around with SU, let me know if you have any questions that I might be able to answer.
Stacy, thanks for this post, I've only recently discovered Su, but haven't dipped in there as of yet. From what you write, it sounds well-worthwhile.
p.s. Congratulations on being no.1 on Aussiejourno's blog of the week awards, it's well deserved, too!
Thank you, Shrink Wrapped Scream, I was so surprised when I saw David's list this week.
I think you'll like SU when you have a chance to really use it.
Thanks for visiting RT!
I also don't like to give thumbs down to sites eg I'm mainly interested in sites about travel in Europe when I travel stumble but don't want to suggest that pages about travel in other continents are not good. I have written about using SU to boost visitor numbers to your business:
http://www.businessblogboost.com/2007/06/29/should-you-stumble-your-business-blog/
Thank you for the link, Karen!
I don't thumbs-down very often either unless I think something on the site is very bad and I am prepared to comment on why. Oftentimes when I hit the stumble button, I may come across a site that I'd like if I were in a different mood, and I won't penalize those sites that just don't coincide with my present state of mind.
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