StumbleUpon Marketing
Categories: Internet
A significant portion of the traffic for several of my websites has been thanks to StumbleUpon. In terms of driving a significant amount of traffic, StumbleUpon has a whole lot of potential to web developers. To share my experience with others, and to learn a little myself, I compiled some research pertaining to marketing with StumbleUpon in my most recent website.
You can find the full website at StumbleUpon Marketing.
To get the ball rolling, here are ten tips to effective StumbleUpon Marketing:
- Stumble actively – Using the StumbleUpon toolbar often accomplishes two things. The first is that it shows you are an active member of the StumbleUpon community, making it more likely for Stumblers to befriend you and support your links. The second is that it gives you a feel for what types of sites appear most often in StumbleUpon. You should strive to both stand out and fit in at the same time.
- Participate in the community – Make friends, join groups, post reviews, customize your profile and subscribe to other stumblers’ links. Exposure is vital to successful StumbleUpon marketing, and it is more difficult to make friends on StumbleUpon than some other social networks. For more information, read Be Social.
- Send links to your friends – Suggest great links to your friends. Make sure you aren’t only sending links to your own sites, as you will begin to look like a spammer. Rather, suggest great links and occasionally drop a link to one of your own sites. A suggested link is significantly more likely to be looked upon favorably than a random stumble.
- Stumble interesting content pages, not the homepage – Don’t submit links to the home-page of a site; rather, link to interesting content pages. Stumblers don’t like to have to look for the content when they are stumbling, they want it to be given to them. The obvious exception to this rule would be one-page sites, like Power Hower: Power Hour Timer.
- Create unique, intriguing content – The sites that work best on StumbleUpon are the types of sites you would, as the name implies, stumble upon by accident. Websites like Donclick.it are best, because they offer an intriguing concept in an engaging fashion that captures user’s attention right away. For more information, see Link Bait.
- Use relevant tags – Stumblers are telling you what they want to see; don’t try to trick them by sending them something they are uninterested in. There are enough tags to cover a broad range of topics, and you are most likely to get stumbler’s attention with the content they have expressed an interest in seeing.
- Intrigue, don’t pitch – If you are trying to sell a product, StumbleUpon might not be the way to go. Stumblers generally aren’t in the mood to be shopping. However, if brand-recognition is your goal, StumbleUpon can help. If you post information about a product that intrigues stumblers, they might come back and buy it later. For a perfect example, see Fred & Friends.
- Mention StumbleUpon – Regular stumblers are in love with the StumbleUpon service. Make mention of StumbleUpon and the stumblers will look upon your site more favorably.
- Convert stumblers into regulars – Immediately at the end of your content, give your stumblers somewhere else to go. Place RSS subscription buttons near the top of the page, and immediately at the end of the content, to attempt to hook a small percentage of the stumblers into becoming regulars. Many stumblers don’t stay subscribers for very long, but if your content is good enough, they will.
- Avoid automated tools – While some automated tools may bring you a quick burst of traffic, they are against the rules of StumbleUpon, and can result in your account being banned or your sites being removed from StumbleUpon. Sites that promise any type of StumbleUpon traffic are not to be trusted, and will most likely steal your money. For more information, see Cheating.