The Power of StumbleUpon

Posted: March 10th, 2010 | By: Steve Mullen | Filed under: Social Media Opinion, Social Media Tactics | 2 Comments

NOTE: I’m leaving this post intact, but be sure to read the follow-up about how I’ve been shut out by StumbleUpon.

To some these days, social bookmarking sites are almost a little quaint. Facebook and Twitter are the kings of social media content, and bookmarking sites seem so … five years ago. I’m here to tell you, however, that social bookmarking is alive and well as a traffic generator. Recently, for client SleepBetter.org, I was researching which tactics we weren’t using to help people find the sleep tips and advice provided by the site. Of course, we’re on Twitter and Facebook, and we’re also utilizing Google Buzz. We tried Digg, Delicious, and Reddit with little success. Then, we started submitting links to Stumbleupon. The results were immediate and dramatic. In fact, in the month of February, Stumbleupon was our second largest referrer, after Google.

Unlike other social bookmarking sites, such as the aforementioned Digg, Delicious, and Reddit, users of StumbleUpon don’t have to be looking for your content to find it. I’ve often thought this was the downfall of trying to use Digg to help visitors find you. Unless your content is tech-related or involves someone falling off of a donkey and hurting a sensitive part of the body, posting to Digg is often like whistling into the wind. StumbleUpon is different. In fact, the whole point of the site is finding random content that you didn’t know you were looking for. You click a button and “stumble upon” a site. It’s much like channel surfing. StumbleUponn can help you find random content that’s been submitted, or you can have it help you find random content within a category. Obviously, it’s an outstanding time waster.

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