Shut Out by StumbleUpon

Posted: March 19th, 2010 | By: Steve Mullen | Filed under: Social Media News, Social Media Opinion | 10 Comments

You may recall it was only a little more than a week ago that I wrote a blog post praising StumbleUpon, and giving tips on how it can be used. Well … my StumbleUpon experiment is coming to an abrupt end. I’ve not been banned, but apparently StumbleUpon has decided that the content I find should not be seen by anyone. Let me explain…

Previous to the last handful of days, when I discovered something and then submitted it to StumbleUpon with a review, it would receive anywhere from 50 to 200 “views” by StumbleUpon users. My network was growing on the site, and I was starting to stumble more and more content, including (of course) content that I didn’t write or own. Essentially, I was doing what I suggested in my previous blog post. In fact, I was sure that I wasn’t using the site improperly because I received this review of my previous StumbleUpon post from a community manager at the site:

A truthful and well-thought article from someone who understands StumbleUpon and how to properly use it.

Then … the bottom fell out. I discovered a client article last weekend, and it received only one view. I figured it was a fluke, because that’s happened before. Then, I discovered and reviewed a client news release from PRWeb. It received 12 views, which is well below average. I still wasn’t worried, though. The next three articles I discovered, stumbled, and reviewed received only one view each. This included the post I wrote here about the new Facebook Weekly Page Updates, which was well received elsewhere. Now I knew something was up.

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Tags: stumbleupon

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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Tags: social bookmarking, social media, stumbleupon