How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide
Feb 23, 2007 by Tamar Weinberg | Social Networks
When people speak about driving traffic through social networks, the first site that comes to mind is usually Digg. Digg’s popularity is obvious: as the numbers increase above the “digg it” (or “dugg”) button, the likelihood for increased traffic goes up as well. There are numerous posts that explain how an extremely popular link on Digg can bring you traffic and links.
A lot of people want to get their page on the Digg main page, but in terms of popularity of other online social mediums, it stops there. There are other means of getting good — perhaps better, when considering that it’s targeted — traffic, such as StumbleUpon.
Not long ago, I wrote about the driving force behind StumbleUpon’s popularity. To reiterate, StumbleUpon is highly personalized traffic based on your interests that is served to you when you are actively looking for new sites to discover. The service requires a download of a very easily-integrated toolbar that sits right under the Address bar on your browser. To begin using the service, you click on the “Stumble!” button on your toolbar, and you can rate a site with a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down sign. As sites are continually rated with a “thumbs up,” the page is served to more and more SU users.
The toolbar, which was recently updated with more eye-grabbing icons due to StumbleUpon’s continuous desire to evolve and provide users with the best experience, is shown below:
StumbleUpon also allows you to “discover” new sites. In your regular browsing experience, you might find a site that you think would interest other people. The “thumbs up” icon works for all sites, and that is how new sites get into the database of StumbleUpon pages that are served to the end user during their stumbling session. When you “thumbs up” your site and it hasn’t yet been submitted, you’ll see this window:
The URL is inherited by default, but you can personalize your initial submission with a title and the brief description of the page. You can then categorize this into any one of the categories listed and you can tag it with whatever appropriate tags would benefit your visitors. Once the site is in the system, people will begin stumbling and learning more about the site you submitted.
How can you leverage your StumbleUpon influence to get your submissions noticed?
- Personalize your page. Upload an avatar, tell people who you are (fill out the “General” section), and share with the community what you like (the “Interests” section). If people are browsing the user community, they’ll get a truer sense of who you are.
- Join the communities relating to your interests and your business. To make sure that you are served pages that truly interest you, you’ll want to join targeted communities so that the traffic is desirable. You’ll also be able to contribute similar pages to the StumbleUpon engine so that they are added. If your page relates to these groups, they will be served to the group members. You can join up to 63 groups in the following main categories, which should cover just about everything:
- Befriend people who have similar interests. Adding friends whose pages interest you means that they will likely appreciate the pages that you’re submitting as well. It grows into a mutual relationship. People who like the pages you submit will befriend you and you will be serving them content based on the relationship. With the StumbleUpon network, you can have up to 200 friends.
- Stumble often. Just submitting and stumbling upon a single page doesn’t bode well for your reputation, and keen users will take notice of this. Stumble frequently. If people like the pages you’ve stumbled upon or submitted, you’ll likely also be rated highly in the community.
- Label and tag your submitted pages appropriately. When you tag your new submissions, be relevant. Pertinent tags will bring you the most targeted traffic from the users who specifically have expressed an interest in the topic you are serving content for. If you cover all the keywords (and tags) that you could possibly think of that don’t relate to your site, your popularity (if any) will be short lived when the thumbs-down button is pressed. Bear in mind that once the page is submitted, tags can be added and removed by the community members (which is a definite indication that they’re visiting the site!)
Why should you look at into directing StumbleUpon traffic to your site? Beyond the obvious benefits of extremely targeted traffic, the traffic doesn’t come all at once compared to a site like Digg. There’s the inherent benefit of having that “15 minutes of fame” on Digg until it crashes your server. StumbleUpon traffic is generally much more gradual. In one particular example, Neil Patel explains that StumbleUpon drove 17,209 visitors to his site in 25 days. Traffic coming directly from Digg is much less memorable, and most Digg users don’t venture farther than the front page.
An alternative is to consider sponsoring your site on StumbleUpon. Compared to the most obvious rival, Google Adwords, StumbleUpon traffic is sought and is the only page being served to the user at the time. It’s also incredibly cheap at $0.05 per visitor (with a maximum of 2,000 visitors per day). The results have been pretty amazing and provides “qualified traffic instantly” compared to Adwords, as indicated by a recent user’s experience. This may not always be the case, however.
So if you’re not interested in advertising, go social. The StumbleUpon community is a great way to find some pretty neat pages that you’d have never previously heard of.
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75 Responses to “How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide”
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damn! this is actually the first time i have read something about stumbleupon that actually makes me want to start using it. thanks
It’s awesome… everyone really should! I’m very conservative about my plugins and toolbars, but this one’s definitely a keeper.
Hey Tamar,
Great article! I’ve added it to my StumbleUpon resource page, if that’s all right by you?
Best,
Mike
StumbleUpon is the best for getting the word out on your site. I have had several instances where someone “Stumbled” a page on my blog and I received 20K+ hits over a months time. The fact that StumbleUpon spreads it out over time makes it even better.
Thanks for article.
I have beening stumbling articles for quiet a long time.
Great Resource
Mike, sure! Thanks! I’ve bookmarked your page as well.
Thanks for providing such a great information.
A perfect article about StumbleUpon! I’ve been a StumbleUpon member since Dec 2006 but never took it seriously because I don’t like using toolbars.
I started using it regularly since yesterday and have found too many cool sites of my interest. Now, I love this site more than Digg!
This is great advice, Tamar, and I just Stumbled it a thumbs-up. I’m in a bit of a quandary though. My blog is about job seeking advice and it doesn’t really fit well into any of the existing categories on StumbleUpon so I’ve had to make do with ‘Business’ for now. We’ll see how that goes soon enough, as I just started Stumbling (funny how a capital turns something negative into something positive).
I’m glad you found it, Jacob! I hope it is continuing to provide value to everyone who Stumbles Upon it.
I actually post some interesting SU findings on my other blog. There’s a lot of great stuff there, I think, more for leisure purposes.
The web is full of surprises and goodies!
Hello!
I am VERY new to all this blog stuff. Today I was searching how to increase my traffic to my site. Your link was talked about in one of the sites I was read (that’s why I am here today.. Increasing your hits..lol..)
Thanks for posting information on this topic. I’ll be honest when I read most of this it’s like a whole other langauge that I don’t know. With time I am sure I’ll understand some of the words and terms used. I am sure to be back to your your site again.
I am going to go read more of your site now. Thanks again for making all of this public (I need to learn more and this just makes it that much easier for someone like me.)
Dora Renee’ Wilkerson
http://amishrugsandmore.blogspot.com/
http://www.bricoreandfamily.blogspot.com/
Well, I am certainly glad that I stumbled on this site while using Stumble Upon. Sometimes you find exactly what you want and this information is very helpful to me and my blog:
http://www.thearticlewriter.com/blog
Great article. I think Stumbleupon is great and a nice & cheap way to drive some quality traffic if you use the advertiser function. I’ve tried it on my career advice section.
I’m very excited about StumbleUpon. I have installed it and really enjoy the sites where it sends me. I hope it turns into an effective tool, also.
Well…I still studying but never try yet.Anyway thanks
Great resource guide! I added this to my post here.
Thanks!
I’ve written about how I’ve used Stumbleupon for my business blogs:
http://www.businessblogboost.com/2007/06/29/should-you-stumble-your-business-blog/
Good Tip!
Digg effect may last just a day or 2…and may give huge traffic if u stay in top page…but that is for a day…
Stumbleupon gives perfect regular traffic as people with same interest generally stumble your site.
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Tamar, thanks for this great info – I was a bit lost when I first visited Stumbleupon – this guide will be very helpful and increase my motivation to pursue this site fully. I know the creators of Squidoo recommend Stumbleupon highly. I will be adding my Squidoo lenses especially the following one that has recently hit the Top 100:
Squidoo marketing
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[...] How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive GuideTamar Weinberg breaks down StumbleUpon for business owners. [...]
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Hi Tamar!
I love stumble upon it drives massive traffic to my blog but there is one problem with them they are not reacting with my blog they’re just reading the posts and leaving.
[...] Personalize your ‘About’ page. Plan what goes on it [...]
[...] How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide (10e20): I walked through some of the basics of StumbleUpon, and this guide still definitely points you in the right direction, but don’t be surprised if you see an updated guide posted sometime in the near future! [...]
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Nice post!
I need help! can someone stumble upon my blog!???
http://elblogdelaps3.blogspot.com
[...] How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide – Tamar writes this great post for 10e20.com. [...]
I love the blog! Great post i’m going to start stumbling today.
[...] How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide (Social Media, posted on the 10e20 Blog) [...]
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[...] How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide | 10e20 [...]
I own a site that caters articles, poems based on themes of life and I use social bookmarking as a medium of promotion. It is hard to promote articles on such sites, and people are mostly looking for photos or their are people who are into web business and like tools and web based articles to read. Am a regular stumbler myself but the thing that has troubled me is I have articles that would interest a very limited category of people. I have tried adding pics to my poems and have also added some promotional pages just to do a bit better. Stumbleupon is addictive and drives marginal traffic to my site on regular basis. I have some pages that do well on stumble and some don’t.
cheers.
I am by the name SHVMDHWN on stumble, If anyone would like to add me up.
Very useful information. I have been member of Stumbleupon for a past 6 months, but haven’t used it properly. This article helps me a lot to use stumbleupon to get more traffic for my website photoclix.in.
Great article. I still need to do more research, but this helped greatly!
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I use Stumbleupon as a great source of interesting blog posts and also for generating traffic.
Stumble + reddit will out-perform digg any day in terms of quality visitors.
Excellent information. Someone Stumble Upon’d my site and my traffice jumped way up. Your post helped me understand why.
Thanks!
How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide
[...] have played with Stumbleupon for almost a week now. I learn a lot from reading article about how to use StumbleUpon to promote a business. Then I think what if the similar strategy used for [...]
I love using stumbleupon, My only issue with stumbleupon is the fact that I am only limitted to 200 friends. In any case its a great resource for traffic
Great article to read…I was myself a member of SU, but kind of loose track on what I can do with it already. Can anyone help me to restart from zero. Now I actively blogging for the last 5 weeks (I think) on http://ichargebrunei.blogspot.com, but to be honest I’ve got lots to learn and still can’t get the full benefits of it yet.
My knowledge on html or website design code whatsoever is actually none.
I hope I can get something from SU and hear something from expert very soon.:)
thanks you info, i just join stumble upon
Be warned … Stumbleupon is very, very addictive. You can start stumbling and before you know it, you’ve stumbled away 2 hours of your life !
Then again, I guess that’s time better spent than watching opera
I already use stumbleupon for my website, I never use it before but know that it drives traffic to website well I decided to submit my website as soon as possible.
Thank you for your useful post
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I found this post about Stumbleupon from Stumbleupon. It’s a great way to get consistent traffic for niche topics over time. I Stumble You
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Thank you for this interesting article. Though I use it from time to time, I’m still a bit confused about the review button vs the thumbs up button. Anyway I appreciate the reminder and will explore the rest of your site.
Deb
[...] How to Use Stumble Upon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide [...]
Thanks for the incite! It’s always nice to reminded of the basics!
Thanks!
Thanks for that guide, i'll be sure to submit my site…maybe it might help increase traffic
Stumble rocks. the interest filters work really well and consistently give me content that I enjoy. More power to the Stumble !
Good information to read…mybe you can explain to us about way to start of success on SU
kampanye damai pemilu indonesia 2009
Great Guide, thanks
Hi Tamar,
I also feel for website traffic stumbleupon is better than digg….I also installed it and i am enjoying that more than digg….
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Stumble is the best waste of time since Digg ! I love it, and the quality and categories make it very entertaining. But is it really a business tool? I guess you can get lots of followers like Twitter.
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StumbleUpon Business Marketing…
This is certainly not the first post I’ve linked to on StumbleUpon for business marketing. This article, however, from Tamar Weinberg of 10e20 seems pretty comprehensive. StumbleUpon has evolved into an interesting bookmarking site that has seems to h…
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,..] http://www.10e20.com is other interesting source on this issue,..]
great guide. its hard to find information expressed so well.
appreciated
oh nice one good one nice to read. thanks for the post
I recently submitted my blog to Stumbleupon.
It might be too early to see if there is anyone coming to my site via stumble, but it is worth trying, I think.
My blog is http://www.viewsofastarchild.com
Any other tips would be well appreciated. Thank you for this article.