Stumbleupon

According to Statcounter, StumbleUpon is one of the best traffic generators, out performing both Digg and Reddit. It is also one of the most popular social media platforms today.

StumbleUpon allows users to stumble across various websites and pages in order to search for new or interesting content. Users of StumbleUpon can also select the type of information they would like to read which then tailors their feed to include relevant webpages of interest to them.

Because of StumbleUpon’s rapidly growing user base, having your content in their algorithm allows your page to be reached by a new and targeted audience.

In fact, StumbleUpon is a great way to drive traffic to your site and grow your user base- here’s all you need to know:

Quality Content

One of the main secrets to being successful on StumbleUpon is to offer quality content that instantly engages your audience and convinces them to keep reading. While the platform is a great way to get users onto your page, having them stay there is definitely going to be up to you.

In order to put your best foot forward, avoid adding sales pages, advertising pages and product pages to StumbleUpon. Also, avoid promoting poorly written content or content that lacks quality and information.

StumbleUpon does have a “Dislike” feature and the more users that click this, the less your content will be seen by other people and the higher your bounce rate will appear on tools like Google Analytics.

The social platform also has a series of popular categories that tend to perform well on the site. These include:

  • Tutorials
  • Videos
  • Images
  • Infographics
  • List Style Posts

Knowing these categories can help you tailor your blog posts and the type of information that you choose to share on the platform.

Getting Your Content Out There

StumbleUpon definitely holds great power in driving a lot of traffic to your site. A good example of this is from ToobBox.com. They posted an article about funny autocorrects from iPhone messages. The webpage was then uploaded to StumbleUpon by a reader and went on to receive 7,000 views in just one day.

To get your content onto StumbleUpon there are two ways to go about it: Organic and Paid.

Organic 

There are four main ways to tap into StumbleUpon’s traffic source organically:

1.) You can manually add your content to StumbleUpon by creating an account and adding your webpages. Unlike Reddit, StumbleUpon are fairly lenient with how many links you can upload from the same website. Of course, you will want to add individual page links not just the home page as they will tend to perform better.

2.) If you really want to capitalise on StumbleUpon’s volume the best thing to do is to add a badge to your website in your social media share bar. This allows users who visit your page to instantly share your content through StumbleUpon. Like other social media sites, the more people share your content, the more it will be seen by others.

3.) StumbleUpon also offers their own URL shortening system which can be defined as Su.pr. Once you have uploaded your page to the site you can use their short links to share your page on other social media sites. This allows more people to view your page and helps to increase the number of stumbles you receive across their entire network.

4.) Gaining followers on StumbleUpon is also a great way to get your pages noticed by users. To grow your followers, simply find relevant people to follow and hope that they follow you back. It may take time for you to build up a following however, if you target people who have the same interests as you and share their content in return you may find it easier. It may also help to have a properly filled out profile and an updated image.

Paid

If you really want to boost your traffic through StumbleUpon and don’t want to wait for the organic results to kick in, then running a paid campaign may be the way to go.

StumbleUpon has recently updated their paid discovery program making it very easy to use and track results. They also allow you to set your ‘cost per stumble’ and daily maximum spend.

To set up a paid campaign, simply make an advertiser account and then upload the content that you wish to promote. Once you have uploaded the content you will be asked to set a topic category and an audience to promote it to. This is where you may have to test out your content to see which target audience is going to respond the best.

When it comes to pricing, StumbleUpon has a $1 minimum daily spend and their “price per stumble” is a minimum of 10 cents. You can also set a timeline for your campaign to ensure that you stick to your budget.

StumbleUpon’s report tool is a good way to keep track of how your campaigns are doing, but it is also recommended to cross check your statistics with Google Analytics, just to be sure you are getting the best out of your campaign.

Rated one of the top seven social media platforms, StumbleUpon is often unfairly overlooked when it comes to social marketing. Will you try using StumbleUpon today?