Last week I discovered the power of StumbleUpon. While StumbleUpon has been around for nearly two decades, it was never on my radar. Recently, I heard about it through Twitter and became curious. A little more searching got me thinking about how others use it and if I could use it to get my content in front of people. Many people rave about how much traffic it drives. Others seemed to describe it more like a sugar rush. In the end, I decided to try it out myself and get an idea of its value. So I went over to the help center with two questions: How does it work; and can I use it? Will it get The Modern Father to the top of the world? Read on to find out.
StumbleUpon setup
In order to use StumbleUpon, you need to set up an account. Thankfully, the Help Center has a nice New User Guide to help you out. I started off with the mobile app, since I was at lunch when I decided to try it out. I have an Android phone, but if you navigate to it in your phone or tablet browser, you’ll be presented with a landing page that will take you to the appropriate app store to download.
I haven’t tried to use it on the phone browser by going to a direct link, so it might be an app-only option. The nice part is that the app works pretty well, though in a slightly more limited way than the desktop site.
Stumbling isn’t just from drinking
In StumbleUpon language, Stumbling is the main activity. Stumbling will present a page that matches your interets. These pages were submitted by others, and then liked by one or more people. It displays the page like it was from the site, though with the StumbleUpon toolbar across the top (or bottom in the app). If you like it, click the thumbs up. This adds it to your Likes, and if you have followers, it will be injected into their own Stumbles.
If it was okay but not something of interest, you can either Stumble again, or give it a thumbs down. The thumbs down, per StumbleUpon, isn’t a downvote like you find on Reddit or Digg. It’s a way to tailor your experience. There are a number of reasons to thumbs down something. On the desktop, the thumbs down give you options as to why you are doing it. If you just are tired of seeing a specific interest or domain, enough thumbs down will reduce it’s likelihood of appearing in the future. But you can also report a site for technical reasons, being in the wrong interest, etc. These are all in a dropdown from the thumb down icon on the desktop.
For the app, you need to “Report an Issue” and then select the reason, which makes it different from the thumbs down. Some claim that enough thumbs downs will bury a page and make it nearly impossible to Stumble into. This seems contrary to the stated purpose from StumbleUpon, which is more like a thumbs down on Pandora. It just makes similar content less likely to appear in the future.
Putting it to work
The be clear, StumbleUpon is not a promotional tool. The stated aim of the platform is similar to Reddit or Digg: allowing users a way to share content they find interesting. The method is different, however. StumbleUpon is a little more random. Content from years ago can be resurfaced as new users Stumble into it and like it. And each time something is liked, it becomes more likely for it to be put in front of another Stumbler through followers and the algorithm.
Once you have your account and have stumbled through a few pages to get a feel for how it works, you can try to add your own pages.
After repeatedly looking at both the Terms & Conditions as well as the more readable article at the Help Center, here’s my two cents: Both the Ts & Cs and the article make it clear that non-commercial self-posting is okay, as long as it’s not the only thing you do. Non-commercial is defined as pages that don’t sell a specific service or product. So if you have a landscaping company, an Etsy page, or something else, you can’t post those. If you have regular articles that might be of interest that don’t promote a specific product or service, you should be fine.
Keep in mind, however, that StumbleUpon may prevent you from adding pages from a specific domain. If you have a site on the Blogspot domain, you’re out of luck. If you find that pages from your domain aren’t being added from your account, it’s likely because you aren’t sharing a variety of content. The solution is to use the service as intended and help spread the word about other interests you have. That means Stumbling and liking already submitted pages, adding pages from others, etc.
To add a page, grab the URL then head over to your account. If using the apps, you go into the menu and select Add a Page. Toss in the URL, enter a description, the check the box if it’s not-safe-for-work (things you wouldn’t want to Stumble into while at the office). If using a browser on a desktop, there is an Add a Page option when you go to My Profile. You get a few more options there, as you can give it an interest and then add a number of tags. The tags can be important as it helps further categorize the page and put them in front of interested Stumblers.
How it did
When I added a few articles, I did notice a huge uptick in traffic… for an hour or so. Then it trended back to normal levels. However, that jump was noticeable, and the articles that ended up with likes had much more sustained traffic. The downside is that if the likes dry up, you’ll end up getting only a small amount of traffic each day from StumbleUpon. At this point, I have about a dozen articles added. If I were to do it all over, I would probably spend more time building out a portfolio of likes and contributions so that I could attract followers. That way, when I added my own pages, they would have a wider audience that was already more likely to enjoy my content.
In short, it’s not a huge effort, it’s actually a fun way to find interesting content, and it’s another avenue for promoting content from other bloggers you don’t think is getting the attention it deserves. As a way to drive traffic to your site… the results are mixed. It doesn’t seem very sticky. You get a huge rush of views, but unless the content is liked, it’s going to disappear and only be seen occasionally. My most liked content does still see a few random views each day, but it blends into the general traffic for the site.
Going forward
I’m thinking about other ways to use this tool, besides for fun. If you build up enough of a following or find enough like-minded Stumblers, you can probably get some critical mass behind content to get it rolling on its own. But by yourself, it takes a very special or viral piece of content to get enough likes to rack up the thousands of views some people claim. So overall, StumbleUpon is just another tool, though it’s not as involved as others. It’s fire-and-forget, then let the whims of the internet determine where it goes.
