Recently, I was enjoying my lunch break and catching up on Twitter activity, when I came across an article on Search Engine Journal called, “15 Places You Should Be Sharing Your Blog Posts (Other Than Facebook And Twitter).” Naturally, I had heard of several of the platforms mentioned and in fact, utilize many of them. However, I had not yet made myself familiar with StumbleUpon. This article enticed my curiosity and I decided to start stumbling.
It was very easy to sign up. Like all social networks, I was prompted to provide an email, create a username and password, before beginning my new adventure. During my account creation process, I selected several interests I had from a list provided to me. These interests, help the site to select the type of content, you stumble upon.
Once your account is set up, you can add a bio, picture and pages to the network. After your pages have been added to the network, others have the capability to stumble upon them. Making this, a valuable resource for sharing your blog’s quality content!
The Top Content Being Stumbled:
- Lists: These would include tips and tricks!
- Tutorials: The beloved How-To’s!
- Images: Photographers make up a substantial part of the StumbleUpon community!
- Infographics: Like Pinterest and other visually engaging platforms, StumbleUpon loves infographics!
- Videos: YouTube, Vimeo and other video resources do well here!
What does that mean for you? Simple. It means, that submitting quality content, will include having media resources, stunning images, educational infographics and bullet pointed lists! Submitting web pages with strictly text, will likely not be as equally engaged.
Another resource available to you, that might help to increase the chances of your content being stumbled upon is, the StumbleUpon Badge. By adding this badge to your site, you encourage others to add and share your pages to the network.
Making Friends:
Like other social outlets, you have the ability to follow others and in turn, have them follow you back. The best way to discover like-minded people is to type this URL into your search bar http://www.stumbleupon.com/discover/keyword/ and replace the word “keyword” with a word describing a personal interest or hobby you have. This will display a list of other Stumblers who share the same interests as you.
To increase your following you will want to update your bio and add a profile picture. Also, include your Twitter handle in your bio. It is a great way for others to search for you and follow you on Twitter. In turn, you can perform a Google search for site:stumbleupon.com/stumbler/ “follow me” twitter to locate StumbleUpon users who have their Twitter linked to their bio. This allows for you to follow them on both social outlets and Tweet directly to them that you have followed them over on StumbleUpon, encouraging them to follow you back there.
Final Thoughts:
StumbleUpon is a great way to share content! Also, I found myself stumbling through many interesting web pages, that I may not have otherwise been exposed to. I would absolutely encourage you to share your highest, quality posts there. It is a free resource that can drive traffic to your site. Why wouldn’t you explore its potential? There is thumbs up or thumbs down next to the stumble button. By giving content a thumbs up, you encourage the network to provide similar content for you to StumbleUpon. A thumbs down, will result in that type of content being removed from your suggestions. You can stumble your own pages, to see how others will view it. Only submit, quality content and be sure to cater to the top 5 content stumbled upon that was listed above before sharing!