The user can then give feedback on whether the site matches his or her taste by giving it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. It’s a virtuous cycle where StumbleUpon gathers all the feedback, ranks them and presents the most liked sites as random selections to its users, which leads to more feedback and so on.

At first glance, StumbleUpon looks like it’s just something to entertain lazy web surfers. In truth, it’s a powerful tool that gives a website access to new, previously untapped audiences. A robust StumbleUpon app for mobile already exists, waiting to take advantage of our growing use of the web from mobile devices. While it can be hit and miss at times, the fact remains that SU puts a site in front of millions of users who can potentially become avid readers and even regular customers.

You might be thinking, “Hey, I already use Facebook and Twitter. Why do I need to use StumbleUpon, too?” The truth is the numbers are simply in favor of SU. When it comes to making your blog or website go viral, StumbleUpon is an efficient path to take to gain more website traffic.

StumbleUpon was responsible for more social shares than even Facebook in the United States recently. Given that StumbleUpon only has 20 million users right now while Facebook has 800 million, this shows you the enormous potential for growth through going viral via SU. If such a small community can account for such massive amounts of traffic now, imagine the coverage you can get when this community grows even bigger.

Case in point: StumbleUpon has been instrumental in building the success of several online businesses, helping them reach out to new visitors and giving them access to a large potential market while attracting ad revenue for their sites. Here are two examples:

Stereomood is a web-based service that allows visitors to compile and listen to music that matches whatever mood or situation they’re currently in, be it a lazy Sunday morning, a cold winter night, or even a soundtrack for spring cleaning. This simple service has generated over 400,000 individual hits in a few months from StumbleUpon alone. As more people visit Stereomood, the potential exists for the site to starts generate large amounts of ad revenue – or even be purchased by a major player in the music or entertainment business.

Artists and designers, such as Aled Lewis have seen their work reach a much broader audience than would otherwise have been possible thanks to StumbleUpon. His website, aledlewis.com, has received almost a quarter of a million hits in 2009 alone – and those are just the hits that SU is responsible for. Factor in the way people share links with their friends and loved ones and the actual number of hits that can be attributed to StumbleUpon rises even more.

One caveat: while many sites can see huge gains when using StumbleUpon, it’s not for everyone. Businesses like retailers and service providers that operate only in certain locations will find it less rewarding, if at all, to use SU. On the flip side, getting on StumbleUpon is a great match for web-based enterprises like video tutorials or Etsy handicrafts.

So how exactly do you duplicate this type of success on your own blog or website? Well, there are just a few key steps that you need to follow in order to achieve some StumbleUpon success.

First of all, you’ve got to be a heavy user of StumbleUpon yourself. Install that toolbar and start stumbling onto other websites, and be sure to give your rating for each one that the program throws out at you. Take the time to fully personalize your account, joining those communities that are closest to your personal and business interests. By being active and responsive in the community, you are creating a strong and very visible profile in SU. And you also get to discover new sites and interesting people along the way.

The next step is to build up a strong network with other active users of StumbleUpon, especially those that share the same interests or are in the same type of business as you are. Obviously, if you’re interested in social media, you should make sure to follow me on StumbleUpon. Stumble onto the websites of these people, and take the time to get to know them. Remember, this is still a form of social network marketing so good community relations is a must.

Next, make sure your site or blog has some content that would easily catch the eye of other StumbleUpon users. Top 5 lists and list posts in general usually do very well because they are chockfull of information, easier to read and are just as entertaining as regular articles. Use eye-catching titles that you know will pique the interest of your target audience. If what you want to promote is a static website, create a high-impact landing page instead of using your homepage so you can rake in more positive points. Of course, you also need to provide good content because getting page views simply won’t be enough. You’ll need to garner mainly positive ratings in order to really succeed.

If the method above simply isn’t enough for you, and you’ve set aside a bit of cash for promoting your site, then you can avail of StumbleUpon Paid Discovery. These are ad spots that feature your link at a cost of as little as 5 cents per click. Given the much higher potential to go viral than on other social networking sites, it’s a pretty good potential investment.

Whatever it is you are promoting online, the key to internet and viral marketing success is in providing something unique and authentic, which is why building your business identity within the community is so important. Once you’ve got that down pat, you need only wait and let StumbleUpon do the rest of the work for you.

Has StumbleUpon helped you find new customers? Any other SU marketing strategies or advice that you would add?

Oh, and if you’re still mystified by StumbleUpon, please check out this inforgraphic with the latest statistics to give you more background on why this social media website is so special.

Undoubtedly, the history of how Mark Zuckerberg started the biggest social network in the world is already familiar to you. Zuckerberg was commissioned to create a social network called Harvard Connections but delayed the project while pursuing the creation of another site, thefacebook.com. Whether or not he copied the idea is up to the courts, but what we do know is that the growth of the site was phenomenal, getting between 1,200 to 1,500 new users in the first 24 hours.

Starting at Harvard, Facebook quickly branched out to other universities like Columbia and Stanford. It then soon was expanded to cover many of the most prominent colleges in the US, Canada and even in the UK. After a final rollout to employees of big name companies like Apple and Microsoft, other universities in Australia and New Zealand and to high school students, Facebook was finally introduced to the world.

Fast forward to today: Facebook has over 750 million users and as of June 2011, is the second most visited .com site after Google. It’s way beyond a social network as well, becoming a gaming platform, marketplace, messaging hub, photo hosting site and more. And now every business is trying to figure out how to increase Facebook fans.

Twitter

Crazy as it sounds, Twitter started out as a hack on top of AOL Instant Messenger that let Jack Dorsey view status updates on his RIM pager. It was too early for the idea though since mobile devices were still quite scarce and expensive at the time.

From humble dispatch software beginnings, Dorsey was starting to piece together a way to expand the service and add instant messaging and text messaging to the mix. In 2006, he collaborated with Evan Williams and Biz Stone to create a prototype for internal use within William’s company, Odeo. After a few short months, Twitter was eventually formally spun off into its own company.

It’s first growth spurt came during the 2007 SXSW festival, where live tweets were broadcast on two distinctly located plasma screens. From 400,000 tweets per quarter in 2007, Twitter now sends 230 million tweets per day and has 100 million active users around the globe. It has also spawned an ecosystem of hundreds of Twitter apps and tools.

LinkedIn

To start a professional networking site, you have to begin with a few professionals. After working for Apple and PayPal and getting a generous payout from the latter’s sale to eBay, Reid Hoffman was now ready to start his own company. After a brainstorming session with a few friends on his couch, he soon gathered a team of 13 people to start building and promoting his site, LinkedIn.

It was tough going at first but the viral growth soon kicked in and eventually Hoffman was able to monetize the site through advertising, job listings and subscriptions. After a few successful years, LinkedIn finally went for an IPO in January 2011. As of September 2011, the company is now valued at $8.8 million, one of the most successful public offerings in the post bubble era. LinkedIn has also now established itself as the hub for B2B social media marketing.

WordPress

Blogging has become almost synonymous with WordPress. Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little forked WordPress from b2, one of the more popular blog publishing platforms at the time. It grew out of concerns that b2, also known as Cafelog, suddenly stopped getting updates and its main developer fell off the grid somehow. WordPress was built from the GPL code of b2 and released to the world in 2003.

Since then, it’s grown quite a lot winning several Open Source awards across the years and becoming the blogging platform of choice for many companies and brands. Mullenweg himself has gone on to create other successful projects through his company Automattic, such as After the Deadline which aims to bring spell checking to every site on the web and Gravatar, a centralized avatar repository used by many of the top blogs in the world. WordPress is what runs this website and has also spawned an ecosystem that has fostered thousands of WordPress plugins.

Tumblr

David Karp started Tumblr in 2007. When Karp was 19, he found out about a new form of blogging called tumblelogging, a shorter form of posting thoughts to the internet. He soon launched his own site on November 1st, filling the niche between actual blogging and tweeting.

The site has grown quite well to 3 million users strong, boasting an 85 percent retention rate due to its pristine yet customizable interface. Tumblr is now home to over 28 million blogs and more than 10 billion posts. Who would have thought?

Foursquare

Your favorite mayor-ousting service began as a thesis project by Dennis Crowley at NYU. After gaining some buzz as a unique SMS-based location service, the precursor to Foursquare and its technology was bought by Google in 2005. He started collaborated with Naveen Selvadurai in 2008 and soon launched a new location-based app in the popular South by Southwest (SXSW) festival the next year. Dubbed Foursquare, it combined a location pinging services with a badge scoring system that made it a huge hit in the event.

It kept on growing, churning out an API so that other developers could build upon its location discovery service. Foursquare now has 10 million users scattered all over the world with 750 million check-ins under its belt. There’s even a holiday named after it; April 16 is dubbed Foursquare Day. Although the personal ROI of using Foursquare is debatable, the future for location-based services from a marketing perspective is promising.

StumbleUpon

Click a button, find a cool site. That was the basic premise for this service built by friends Geoff Smith, Garrett Camp and Justin LaFrance in 2001. It started as an add-on for Firefox, one of the first actually, and as people adopted the new browser, StumbleUpon grew with it. It also spread via word-of-mouth and its popularity eventually led it to being bought by eBay in 2007.

Feeling that the site was growing beyond what eBay could offer, one of the founders set out to buy the company back in 2009. It was a long and arduous time but in April 2009, StumbleUpon became independent once more. The site has done quite well ever since, boasting 1 billion stumbles (or page recommendations for your non-Stumblers) per month. If you haven’t tried it yet, there are many reasons why you should become a StumbleUpon user.

Empire Avenue

What’s this? Using your social media activity to increase your stock price? This could only happen on the magical website that is Empire Avenue. This social stock market was created by Duleepa “Dups” Wijayawardhana, Dr. Michael Mannion and Niall Brown as a sort of virtual currency, tracking your social value on the web.

It was the culmination of a round of drinks in 2008 in Montreal. Gathering some of the best experts in gaming, business and math, they created a site that takes an algorithmic analysis of networks you are part of and translating that into economic terms like your share price. Once an invite-only site, it’s now open to the public and free to play.

If you’ve been hanging around social networks the past few months, you’ll notice people playing Empire Avenue and building up their “social capital” through it. While the site doesn’t reveal statistics about itself, it did raise a cool $1.2 million in financing recently, which means we will be seeing a whole lot more of Empire Avenue soon. And, yes, Empire Avenue is important to social media marketers.

Did you learn anything new here by looking at the history of these popular social media websites? Any other tidbits you’d like to add? Please share!

First of all, StumbleUpon is not a niche site.  With more than 11 million members, it has almost twice the number of registered users that Digg has, which Kevin Rose was recently quoted on Quora saying that Digg membership was almost at 6 million users.  So while considerably fewer users are stumbling when compared to the user base of  LinkedIn or Twitter, membership of over 10 million users is not something to ignore in terms of social media marketing.  What is amazing is how a site with so few members can drive traffic that can compete with these larger sites.

Whenever I check my stats, StumbleUpon never ceases to surprise me in the traffic that it generates to my website.  I already told you that StumbleUpon was not about the SEO and why you should become a heavy user.  If you had followed my recommendations, you would probably be seeing similar results that I have found: For social media-driven traffic over the last 6 months to my website, StumbleUpon is second only to LinkedIn.  That’s right, when all is said and done, StumbleUpon is driving more traffic to my website than Twitter or Facebook.  And I’m not alone.

In this chart from earlier this year, it is clear that StumbleUpon is the 2nd largest source of social media traffic to global website hits:

What excites me even more about the potential for increased website traffic is the recent release of the StumbleUpon for the iPhone application.

How does one best go about generating more traffic from StumbleUpon to your website?  Here are 5 potential ways that can help your StumbleUpon marketing be successful:

1) Advertise

While I usually tell my social media clients to move their Google Pay Per Click ads marketing budget over to social media, StumbleUpon advertisements do provide a way to “seed” their unique recommendations algorithm with content from your website.  For a very inexpensive $0.05 per stumble, you can literally buy traffic to your website.  And instead of having to experiment with categories like in the past, StumbleUpon recently announced a new auto-targeting system for advertisements.   There are over 40,000 brands running advertisements here, so there is nothing to be shy about.  There is a catch, though.  You are trying to get more users to “thumb up” your website so that it will push through the recommendations engine and reach more stumblers.  If you create an advertisement that is simply an ad, those that use SU may not be kind to you and instead give you a “thumbs down,” ensuring that your content will be buried.  What to do?  Consider creating a marketing campaign for a resourceful blog post that can lead the targeted users to both thumbing up your content and checking out your website.  After all, no one is fond of self-promoting in social media.

2) Stumble & Contribute

Anyone who uses StumbleUpon can tell you that the beauty of the platform is in its recommendation engine.  The more you use it to stumble and thumb up or down content, the more it introduces you to amazingly interesting content that you may not find on your Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter feeds.  What’s missing when you stumble?  Your own content, of course!  Obviously there is a need to submit your blog posts to SU just like you tweet them or post them to Facebook.  But this in itself will not help get you a lot of traffic.  It is only after you stumble and thumb up other content as well as contribute new content that traffic begins to be generated.  Why this is the case is simple: The more you thumb up content, the more content that goes out to other stumblers that your content is aligned with.  The more you stumble content and contribute in that niche where your target demographic is, the more of a chance you will be found and followed by them.  And the more you are followed, the higher a chance that your content will appear in your friends stumbles.  The whole ecosystem begins when you start to be a true contributor.

3) Follow

StumbleUpon is a social platform.  While you can stumble on your own, StumbleUpon clearly says that it allows for recommendations from your SU friends to work into the recommendation engine equation as well:

StumbleUpon uses ratings to form collaborative opinions on website quality. When you stumble, you will only see pages that friends and like-minded stumblers have recommended. This helps you discover great content you probably wouldn’t find using a search engine.

By following those that you feel you should be aligned with, you now have the potential of aligning your content with them should you be thumbing up the same content or if that person also decides to follow you back.  StumbleUpon conveniently lets you know when you have new visitors to your profile, so always be on the lookout to follow back those who may be relevant to your target audience through looking at:

• those who thumbed up your content
• those who thumbed up content that you felt was extremely relevant to you and your target audience
• those that visit your profile
• those that appear in Suggestions
• those that follow you

4) Use the Su.Pr Shortener

I was confused when the Su.Pr shortener was first released.  With all of the competition out there, why would I want to use Su.Pr?  There’s a very good reason to use it: To Pay it Forward and help out StumbleUpon.  That’s right, when use the Su.Pr shortener to share content on Facebook or Twitter, which is most easily done automatically through the Firefox Add-on for SU, you are not only driving traffic to your website: You are also helping promote StumbleUpon because your website will now appear in the SU frame.  Because you are doing SU a favor in giving them, in essence, free advertising, it is only natural that they pay you back by giving the content that you are sharing some extra “juice” in the number of times the content is sent out to other stumblers.  While everyone’s mileage might vary, I believe that within a few minutes of sharing content with the Su.Pr shortener, you should see stumbler views on your content equivalent to roughly 1/2 of the number of your followers.  When someone thumbs up that same link, you seem to get another batch of the same number of views.  Don’t quote me on this, of course, but this is the type of behavior I have seen after utilizing the Su.Pr shortener.  Hopefully you will see the same!

5) Display the SU Badge on Your Website

When compared to a ReTweet or a Facebook Share, the count from a StumbleUpon badge on your blog page can be a little misleading.  Whereas a ReTweet or Facebook Share/Like are created by active human interaction, the number of stumbler views that appear on an SU badge count the number of times that the content has been passively introduced to other stumblers through the recommendations engine.  On most of my blog posts, the number of SU views is greater than the number of ReTweets or Facebook Shares.  Why is this important?  It actually isn’t, but by giving a dedicated StumbleUpon “Submit” button to your blog posts right next to Twitter and Facebook, you are giving your audience the ability to directly “thumb up” your post.  Furthermore, with those larger numbers showing, it will hopefully have the affect of influencing more people to join in the numbers and thumb up your post.

I’m sure there are many other creative ways of driving traffic from StumbleUpon, but these are some starters to help you get started.  How has your experience been?  Do you recommend any other ways of utilizing the social bookmarking site to get more traffic to your website?

Let me explain it another way: I’m the type who, despite having hundreds of songs in my iTunes library, will still often visit my Amazon Recommendations for personalized introductions to new music.  So StumbleUpon is the exact same thing for the web, always recommending new and insightful sources of relevant information based on my ratings.  And it’s terribly addicting.  If you are unfamiliar with how StumbleUpon exactly works, read this great how to article on StumbleUpon.

StumbleUpon has now significantly increased their value and become the latest social media application that consumes my time through its addicting functionality through the release of the new StumbleUpon for iPhone app.  In doing so, they have delivered on the promise of the mobile web.  Here’s why:

1) We’re Browsing the Web from Our Phone More Than You Think

According to a recent report from AdMob, more than 10% of Internet traffic is accessed from mobile devices and mobile traffic from each major region of the world has increased at least 4x in the last two years.  We are demanding that we are able to access the same websites on our phone that we do on a PC.  Because StumbleUpon wasn’t available on the iPhone, I started using a competitive service for several months.  Other businesses should be forewarned that they face the same risk if they do not get on the mobile bandwagon.  Now that StumbleUpon is on my iPhone, and they have created a killer application, I am back to being a loyal stumbler

2) Mobile Web Browsing Needs to be Optimized & Fast

One of the challenges for any web-based iPhone application is the ability to get information that is both optimized for the small screen and displays quickly.  StumbleUpon has delivered on both of these by displaying websites surprisingly quickly and perfectly optimized for the small screen.  Furthermore, all of the buttons that you can press are represented by clear icons which are of a large size, so it makes it very easy to navigate around the iPhone application with only one hand.  Finally, SU cleverly added an indiscreet progress bar at the top of each web page which is so often missing on mobile applications.  Browsing the internet on a phone can be tedious because of the need to type in a URL; with this new iPhone application the process is now painless because displaying new and relevant content can be accomplished with just an easy press of the “SU” button.  And it’s fast and optimized to boot.

3) Major Web Functionality Needs to Be Available on the Phone App

Some web services create iPhone applications that do not contain all of the functionality that you are used to using on their web version.  While StumbleUpon does not have as much functionality when compared to a rich site like LinkedIn, SU gets a big thumbs up here for putting their major web functionality into their iPhone application.  I would take it one step further in saying that the iPhone user interface is simplified to the point that I almost enjoy stumbling more on my iPhone than on my PC!

4) Sharing is Caring

StumbleUpon is part of my daily routine of daily content curation and sharing.  SU has made it incredibly easy to share your recommended sites across social media through Facebook and Twitter.  I have been using the Twitter share feature and can tell you that it is very easy to use through this iPhone application.  It is hard to tweet out a recommended blog post while browsing the internet on an iPhone; StumbleUpon makes it easy.

If you want to see what stumbling on an iPhone looks like, check out this great video:

If you’re a stumbler please subscribe to my stumbles.  If you’re not a stumbler, just started stumbling, or have any StumbleUpon questions, please comment!  Thanks!

While everyone knows that Facebook is the default choice for any business-to-consumer (B2C) social media marketing, what social media channels are important for businesses hoping to engage with other businesses (B2B)?  How can these types of businesses use social media to engage with their potential clients, gain mindshare and be perceived as a thought leader in their industry, and increase potential clients visiting their website?  Here are the six that I would recommend to most businesses.  Note that, in order to create a sound social media strategy, you should not limit yourself to these 6 B2B social media channels and should also make sure that each site is appropriate for your particular industry.  Creating a social media strategy is about strategic relevance and focus, not comprehensiveness.

1) Your Website & Blog

What most people forget is that social media does not exist in a corporate vacuum and it is only an extension of your marketing, not a replacement.  You will still be doing email marketing as well as other types of traditional marketing, although I do know some start-ups who are putting their marketing budgets solely into social media.  Regardless, you need to lead people somewhere from the conversations in social media to acquaint them with your business and start engaging in a conversation that will hopefully lead to a conversion in the future.  This is why your website is even more important with the advent of social media, and you need to make sure that your website is “social media optimized” to lead others to your social media profiles as well as to help others share your information throughout their social media channels.  Finally, another important part of social media is sharing content, and creating a blog is the best way to achieve this.  Make sure your blog is active and website optimized before engaging in social media.  So before you get active on the other sites listed below, get your own house in order.

2) LinkedIn – Your Hub for B2B Social Media Marketing

If there is one site where decision makers at your potential customers are it is LinkedIn.  Need I say more?  And if you signed up for LinkedIn and nothing happened, make sure you check out the book I wrote to help all professionals maximize your LinkedIn presence.  You can also read my previous blog post on how to get more leads from your LinkedIn presence by avoiding the mistakes that a lot of small businesses make.  Don’t wait for LinkedIn to happen…make it happen!

3) Twitter – The Potential Viral Spread of Tweets Cannot Be Ignored

There are enough business leaders and decision makers from virtually any industry on Twitter to warrant its attention.  Twitter membership is now 50% greater than LinkedIn.  Add in the facts that a Twitter Profile is now almost becoming a default part of a LinkedIn Profile as well as understanding the viral way in which tweets on Twitter get spread and you soon start to see the potential of utilizing Twitter as part of a B2B social media marketing strategy.  I am currently working on my 2nd book which will help you and your business maximize your Twitter presence, but until that’s published, check out my Twitter case study of how NOT to use Twitter.  Stay tuned for more good Twitter blog posts for business in the near future!  And remember, Twitter is not just about tweeting…it’s about engaging, striking up and joining conversations, and respecting others.  But if you engage wisely, Twitter may lead your next customer your way.

4) StumbleUpon – Traffic Generating Community

Part of utilizing social media is to help your company and website to get found.  If you are a consumer brand this is easier to do, but niche B2B businesses can be challenged just to drive any traffic to their website.  StumbleUpon is actually a lesser known social bookmarking site, but because of its algorithm and 10+ million users who like to “stumble” or navigate through several sites at at time, some studies have shown that StumbleUpon actually attracts more traffic to your website than any other social media site outside of Facebook.  My personal experience with StumbleUpon has been the same, even surpassing Facebook.  It is important to note, however, that StumbleUpon should not be used just for SEO and it is a social networking platform in its own.  In addition, because you will need to be sharing content as part of your social media strategy, think of StumbleUpon as your company’s content recommendation engine.  You may not find your Fortune 500 customers on StumbleUpon yet, but I do see an increase in small businesses joining the platform…and there are other compelling reasons listed above that should convince you of SU’s value.  Once you get set up on StumbleUpon, make sure to subscribe to my stumbles for recommend reads on social media strategy.

5) SlideShare – Present Your Business to the World

My newest fave is SlideShare, which in essence is a site of professionals and businesses uploading their PowerPoint presentations.  SlideShare in itself is one of the top 1,000 most visited sites on the Internet according to Compete.com, and it’s traffic is equivalent to more famous sites such as the social bookmarking site Delicious.com.  SlideShare is significant for businesses because this is where other businesses are putting up their presentations, so just as you Google the Internet for information, many businesses and decision makers are coming straight to SlideShare to look for relevant information to help them solve their business problems.  Business usage of SlideShare is increasing to the point where SlideShare rolled out advertising services to allow businesses to get more views of their presentations as well as generate actual lead data from views.  Start with your corporate presentation and then upload your marketing presentations and see what happens.  You may be in for a pleasant surprise!

6) Business Exchange – Network with Industry Leaders and Become the Thought Leader

Business Exchange is literally the Business Week of Social Networking.  What I like about it is that it is similar to LinkedIn in terms of demographic but it gives you the ability to network with and share/learn information with/from other professionals in pre-defined categories and industries.  For instance, for the topic of social media alone there are actually categories covering analytics, branding, business failures and successes, design, social media in the workplace, social media innovation, job hunting, marketing, operations, privacy, training, and social media vs. old media.  Find your industry’s category(s), start sharing information that would interest decision makers in your industry, and build out relationships as you would on LinkedIn.  And, once again, after you sign up please follow me on Business Exchange for the latest in social media strategy.

B2B social media marketing is like anything else social media-related: new tools, old rules.  Business has always been social.  You just need to find where your audience is and get used to a new paradigm where you professionally network with others and try to gain mindshare in a virtual, online world.  That is, in a nutshell, B2B social media marketing.

Any other sites that you would recommend to add to this list?  Please chime in!

And if you’re confused with all of the choices out there and unsure as to how to go about strategizing for your company’s specific B2B social media marketing needs, contact Windmills Marketing for a free initial consultation.

And you know what?  These people are missing out on so much that StumbleUpon offers.

Below are 4 compelling reasons why you should start using StumbleUpon.  Yes, I know, SU had its heyday and is facing competition from sites like Digg and Reddit.  In fact, many lament that StumbleUpon is on its way down.  I disagree: the strength of SU is in its algorithm which delivers as promised: it helps you discover the Web.  And if we all start becoming heavy users, users like you and me can help raise the quality and freshness of the content that appears when we stumble.  So let’s start stumbling!

1) StumbleUpon Helps You Discover the Best of the Web…in Less Time

I often get asked where to go to find relevant information with all of these blogs and Web 2.0 sites out there.  Look no further: the more you stumble, the more relevant of user-voted sites it will recommend to you.  It’s simple: you install the StumbleUpon browser toolbar, and whenever you see something you like or dislike, you select the thumbs-up or thumbs-down button.  You don’t have to do it for every site, but the more you do it, the more SU will know about you and your interests.  Then, when you are ready to “Stumble,” or randomly view a site that the StumbleUpon algorithm recommends to you, you simply select “Stumble” and you will be navigated to a site that was selected based in part on your previous rankings.  I have found some great and relevant blog posts on SU that just didn’t show up on other popular social media channels in this way.  If you want to find more targeted information, StumbleUpon also gives you the option of “Stumbling” by category, so that all of your results would only be websites that others categorized for you.

If StumbleUpon sounds addicting, you’re right!

2) StumbleUpon Helps You Find Interesting People to Follow

Once you find a website that you like, assuming that you are not the first to submit the site to StumbleUpon, you can also see who first submitted the site as well as who else favorited the post.  You can then go to their profiles for more potential informative websites to discover.  You can consider it “social networking connected by ideas” because these people are giving the same opinions on the same websites that you are!  It can work the other way around as well: if you submit your own “discovery” or first-time submitted website, you can see who else favorited it afterwards and find relevant people to follow in this way.

Once you find people you want to “follow,” you “subscribe” to their feeds of websites that they favorited.  You can then go to your customized feed, similar to your Twitter or Facebook Wall, to discover new content.  But it’s more than just a Twitter stream of tweets: you can discover new websites by most recent views, top rated, most shares, or even categorized by the tags that interest you.  The more relevant the content is of the people you “subscribe” to, the better the content will appear both in your stumbling as well as on your “Discover” page on SU.

3) StumbleUpon has a Unique Advertising System: You Can Buy Traffic to Your Website

What if you still want to somehow tap in to the StumbleUpon market and use it to drive traffic to your website?  SU actually welcomes advertisements, at 5 cents apiece, to the URL and category of your choice.  SU reviews each advertisement submission to ensure that the content matches the proposed category, but if it does, you can now insert whatever website you want into the stream of content that stumblers view.  The more thumb ups you receive, the more other stumblers will start to see your content.

I know this sounds weird, but if you are confident in your content, why not lead SU users to quickly discover your site?  On the other hand, if you just want to lead people to a landing page or sell something to them, chances are this strategy will work against you and you will receive thumb downs, which will prevent others from stumbling your site.  My advice: utilize a blog post that adds value and indirectly leads people to want to see the rest of your website.  Social Media Marketing 101.

Also, if 5 cents a view sounds cheap, it is.  The reason?  Visitors from SU have notoriously high bounce rates.  After all, some of them were “just stumbling!”

4) Yes, Using StumbleUpon Will Lead to More Traffic to Your Website…Organically

At the end of the day, similar to a Twitter ReTweet, as you stumble more content and hopefully start discovering a lot of new content that has yet to be stumbled, you will gain new subscribers who will see more and more of your content.  Since you can’t automate following and un-following like you can on Twitter, you are  required to physically vet out those that you want to subscribe to and begin relationships with (isn’t that what social media is supposed to be about?).  It also requires you to share more information about websites that you recommend and less self-promotion about your own, similar to Twitter.  But should you have the right content, have created the right relationships on StumbleUpon, and have shared in the thousands of websites and thus have become a “StumbleUpon Channel” for others, the potential rewards for traffic back to your own website are huge: I have seen websites that have registered 100,000+ views just from SU alone.

I have only been using SU over the last few months, so I am still discovering new ways of using it.  Heavy users, I am sure, have longer lists of benefits.  But hopefully the above will convince you to stop sitting on the sidelines ans start stumbling!

How have your experiences been?  Do you prefer another social bookmarking site to it?  Please inform us all!  And please feel free to subscribe to my content on StumbleUpon!

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