Lesson Learned: The Great StumbleUpon Experiment

StumbleUpon is a fun social media platform that can dramatically increase your page views in a short amount of time!Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small compensation if you purchase using these links.  All opinions are my own.

A few weeks ago, I introduced you to this Blog Traffic E-book that helped me double my blog traffic in just one month.  I’ve been continuing to implement ideas from the book and my blog traffic is growing consistently.

One of the suggestions in the e-book is to use StumbleUpon.  StumbleUpon (SU) is a bookmarking platform where users “like” posts, add them to lists and follow other stumblers.  So I thought I’d give it a try.  After three or four weeks, I’ve decided that StumbleUpon is a fun platform that can grow your page views in a hurry!

How it Works

SU is intended to share posts in fourteen interest categories.  You select a few interests to create your “DNA”.  By clicking the big orange Stumble button, you “stumble” through blog posts that fit your DNA.

You can “discover” posts that are not already in the system by adding their link and assigning them to an Interest.  You can also create lists of posts to come back to later and follow other Stumblers who have similar interests.

This awesome infographic has a pretty good rundown of the key points about StumbleUpon:

How to Use StumbleUpon to Drive Traffic and Marketing #infographic You can also find more infographics at Visualistan

What StumbleUpon Likes

Doing these things will make you a good Stumbler and will increase the likelihood that the things you discover will be shown to lots of people:

  • Add new content – Use the StumbleUpon browser extension to easily add pages you love when you are out and about on the internet
  • Stumble random sites using the Stumble button – This is fun!  You’ll find all kinds of sites and information you wouldn’t have seen otherwise
  • Show up consistently – StumbleUpon wants you to be an active part of the community and reward you for frequent participation. Try to visit and stumble at least three or four times a week.
  • Make friends – Follow other stumblers who have interests similar to yours to create a StumbleUpon community.
  • Great Titles, Headlines and Graphics – Someone described StumbleUpon as being the internet equivalent of channel surfing.  You only have a second to grab a stumbler’s attention before they click the Stumble button and move on.  So make your first impression good!

What StumbleUpon Doesn’t Like

These things will get your posts buried and possibly get you banned from StumbleUpon

  • Stumbling only your own content – StumbleUpon is meant for sharing, not promoting.  Most people recommend sharing 10 other posts for every 1 of your own.
  • Sharing directly from Facebook – For some reason, it doesn’t like you to click a link from Facebook and then stumble it.  You may be better off copying the URL and pasting it in a new browser tab.

What I Learned

No doubt.  StumbleUpon can generate big page views in a short amount of time. But it seems totally random.  Some things that I added for myself or others had several hundred views … one having over 1700 views and still climbing.  But others had zero.  And most had 51. Yes, exactly 51. I couldn’t really tell why StumbleUpon thought some were better than others.

There does not seem to be a very big Christian community on StumbleUpon.  Of over 25 million Stumblers, only 54,o00 are following the Christianity interest.  So it seems like a great place to shine a little Jesus-love.  You can tag a post with multiple interests, so if you have faith-based posts that could also fit in a different interest group (Self-improvement, Women’s Issues, etc.), tag it to both and inject some Jesus in the other categories.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)

Looking at my Google Analytics, I found that the bounce rate for StumbleUpon views is very high … like 95 – 100%.  I know when I am stumbling, I don’t click around the sites very much.  I do read a lot of the articles and like or save them to lists. So just because they are bouncing, doesn’t mean they aren’t reading.  But in general, it’s good for getting page views (which may be valuable to publishers and ad sponsors) but not great for engagement.

I think StumbleUpon is worth playing with if you have a little time.  It’s easy and you can do it while you are curating content for your other social media promotions.  At the very least, add StumbleUpon to your share bar so people who use the platform can easily add and like your page.

Plus, there is also something kinda fun about clicking that big orange Stumble button.  So stumble along and see what happens!

 

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Have you tried StumbleUpon? Share what your experience has been like. Are there other lesser-known social media platforms that you enjoy?

6 thoughts on “Lesson Learned: The Great StumbleUpon Experiment”

  1. Very informative and interesting, Christa. I’m going to have to think a bit before I join this platform…Sounds like it might be tricky to get the hang of it, and I feel I’m spreading myself thin. On the other hand there seem to be many benefits…Need to pray! I like the idea of being light!

    Reply
    • I haven’t quite figured it all out yet, but it sure is fun! I just have to laugh at some of the things that pop up!

      Reply
  2. All great tips, Christa. I love the graphic you shared here, too! I like StumbleUpon because it reminds me of Pinterest, only with just articles. It’s like having your own little library of resources you can go back and refer to or read later. Great for this girl who loves to read:)

    Reply
  3. Yes, I agree SU is a great tool that can generate you massive ammount of visitors in a blink of an eye. Last year when I started my blog, they managed to send me over 450,000 visitors in a month. I had to move to a better hosting, because the old couldn’t work with so many people trying to get in. So its one of the best tools, still havent found a good alternative.

    Reply

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