Have I Been Sending Stumble Thunder Your Way?
Yet Another StumbleUpon Update
Think, eat, live StumbleUpon.
All right, this statement may not accurately reflect the way that I operate, but there are times when it seems that living the life of a Master Stumbler is my lot in life. Even the title Master Stumbler isn’t accurate as I am not recognized as such by StumbleUpon (SU).
What the heck, I don’t care about titles. But this I do know: I send out an awful lot of Stumble Thunder when I’m working that stumble button!
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Let us examine the evidence:
Nathania Johnson, who just happens to work a stone’s throw from where I stumble sent this note to me via SU:
“You are quite the stumbler! After you gave thumbs up to the “I Stumble Kittens” post on BoldInteractive - we got 1200 people to that post in one day!”
I’m not surprised to get this type of response. When I stumbled Nathania’s page, I was probably doing general stumbles when I happened upon her site. I stopped, read her article, left a blog comment and finished with a thumb’s up. I’m not sure how many pages I stumbled that day, but whatever I was doing triggered a thunderous reaction benefiting Nathania’s site. I can only begin to imagine who else was slammed by the SU tsunami.
Just yesterday, I noticed a message from another stumbler left on this blog which triggered a pair of exchanges via SU’s inbox with Mike Busson of Twenty Steps fame. He said:
“Thanks for the Stumble for Twenty Steps. Much appreciated although I was playing around with the server at the time and the CPU suddenly started buzzing!”
Loving the Stumble Thru a website Button
My stumbling methods vary depending on my mood. I enjoy the Stumble Thru a website button and will regularly stumble the following categories: BBC, Educational Institutions, PBS, US Government Sites, and Wikipedia. These sites are the easiest pages to stumble as I rarely come across photos and videos which tend to slow my stumbling to a crawl.
At other times I choose categories that I have decided are important to me and I’ll stumble a little bit here to a lot there.
Helping Friends Means Everyone Benefits
Just last night I did something I will do on occasion: I selected the Friends category and kept on stumbling. I do this for a very selfish reason — I know that I can choose the Share this page with friends button and forward pages to the 200 SU friends I have and that they will respond. No, I don’t keep close track of who actually follows through on stumbles, but the very active stumblers are those people who forward their pages to me for stumbling. Clearly, everyone benefits when you cooperate in this way making for some very loud Stumble Thunder.
15,420 Stumbles Later & He Stumbles His Own Pages Too
I registered with SU in January of this year and have stuck with this prime social media tool as it consistently delivers amazing results and attracts some of the most avid (and friendly) social media people on the internet.
Some people think that there is not much of a benefit of stumbling your own pages, particularly “discovering” your page for StumbleUpon. I must refute this line of thinking: I regularly discover my own pages (as I will with this article as soon as I am finished) and I leave a glowing review (after all, it is my brilliance on display for all to discover!) wink*wink Next, I’ll forward the link to a few active stumblers and then hope for the best.
Growing My New Sites With StumbleUpon
I am afraid I have so much to share about SU that I’ll never get any work done today. Therefore, I will conclude this update by sharing with you that my newest sites — CabinManagers (3 weeks old) and TravelDuties (2 days old) — are getting a lot of Stumble Thunder. CabinManagers already dominates the SERPs (search engine results pages) for several keywords and keyword phrases while TravelDuties has already received hundreds of stumbles on its first full day of operation. Clearly, SU leads as my method for pulling in traffic and its free too!
Have I been sending Stumble Thunder your way?
Matt,
I signed up with StumbleUpon some time last spring, but have yet to utilize it as a tool. Quite honestly, I haven’t really done much of anything with it. After reading this post, I think I better get stumbling!
Thank you for yet another informative post, Matt!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Lisa
Thanks for stopping by, Lisa. One of the great things about SU is that it does not require the same level of effort people must expend with Digg.
Digg may send more traffic your way, but it does that all at once, crashing the server.
5 to 10 minutes of stumbling per day can get you started. Leave comments on some of the pages stumbled and you will begin to attract a strong fan base too!
Wow, I thought getting a couple hundred hits from a Stumble was good. I’m humbled.
Gretchen
Great post Matt. Yesterday, stumbleupon sent me over 4,000 visitors. It truly is the best way for beginning bloggers to get traffic.
Gretchen: It is amazing what StumbleUpon can do for you. My traffic can vary from a few hundred to several thousand on any given day.
Fred: That’s terrific! New bloggers and seasoned bloggers alike can benefit. But, it is a nice way to introduce an all-new blog to the internet.
No, I don’t think you have sent any my way, but I’d definitely appreciate it if you did!
There’s no doubt though, that SU is absolutely my favorite social site. It blows away everything else.
Oooooh, Donna! I just “discovered” your Intro to Membership Sites article and left a comment. I’m sure that move will be the beginning of a beautiful flood of traffic for you!
Thanks for quoting me! What a great write-up about SU. It’s my favorite social bookmarking site by far - and 99% of the people I meet are wonderful.
Matt I’ve had over 200 stumblers come to my site in the last 20 minutes thanks to you. It’s still coming too!
Nathania: I’m glad that you benefited and I agree: there isn’t a better social device than StumbleUpon.
Court: I’m not surprised! Between Stumbling and Sphinning passing along traffic just doesn’t seem that hard to do. Let me know when you pass the 1000 visitors mark.
Can I hug you?
>>>CyberHugs!!!<<<
I would love to have some Stumble Thunder!
Cheers on breaking 15K Matt .. send me anything through SU, anytime.
Maki, I’m thinking that all of your pages have been discovered and then some. Still, I stumbled and left a comment on the “building a popular blog” article. Maybe you’ll get a secondary surge in traffic!
I wanna have Stumble Thunder too… can i?
SU is my favorite site for sending traffic, and one of the few that I devote much time for.
But I’ve wondered about Stumbling your own pages myself after reading a comment from one review that buried with a thumbs down because the site owner often Stumbled their own pages … was this a general perspective or out of the norm? After reading that, I’ve never Stumbled my own pages.
StumbleUpon is a great tool! Do you know anything about purchasing the upgraded membership? I’ve wondered if it is worth it.
With that said, send some thunder my way!
Codes: I “discovered” your site and left a comment. I hope this helps.
Deborah: There is a lot of misinformation out there regarding StumbleUpon. The reason? Because SU doesn’t tell you how their algorithm works. From experience I can tell you that stumbling your own pages does work. I don’t worry about the thumb’s down, heck I don’t worry when someone flips me the middle finger!
BTW, I “discovered” and left a comment on the ice hotels article. Brrr!
Laura: The upgraded membership is okay, all it does is give you a couple of extra features including the ability to block paid stumbles. I contributed the $20 because it is such a useful tool.
BTW, I “discoverd” and left a comment on the 3 Things of Note for Writers article. Happy traffic checking!
Thanks for the stumble!
Who cares about titles? Keep it up with that stumble button!
You are indeed Thunder Stumbler. I think that would make a great screen name. Or a Transformer. Haven’t decided which. Hmmm…
Either way thanks for the linky goodness and for being such a great Stumble buddy!
djahna: You got that right. I can think of better titles in life than “Master Stumbler.”
Mike: I’ll extend a 99-year lease to you for the name Thunder Stumbler. That should outlast all of us.
I too consider myself a stumble Jedi. Maybe we should be friends and do some exchanges. Find me under rj2kix.stumbleupon
Usually I label my stuff with “selfish stumble” or so, at least I didn’t spot shitloads thumb-downs so far.
Hey Matt,
Congrats on reaching the 15k mark on StumbleUpon! Just found your article via Sphinn, and it made me wonder how much traffic that your individual stumble / discovery brings, rather than just being one of several stumbles to a site. Would love some stumble thunder as well!
Stumble upon can really help bloggers at the same time as you stumble there site they could get traffic as well. I think when people stumble your site and you stumble them in return both bloggers could benefit well with this type of activity.
Nice post indeed.
I too have been using stumble as my main social media/bookmarking tool. You are right when you say it brings the “friendly” users to your sites.
I can average 300 per website I stumble but do occasionally get on the “buzz” section which can bring me 5000+ uniques - which for free is amazing.
Good work again
RJ, Sebastian, Brian, Dogs, and Matt: Thank you for your comments. Stumble Thunder is being sent liberally to all who have commented!
Nice post. Im delighted that something as much fun as stumbling is useful for driving traffic. I too have stumbled my own sites and was feeling a tad embarrased about it until reading this.
Very cool - I’ve been using SU for awhile but just recently started to take advantage of the social aspects of it. Just added you as a friend! Any idea on how the SU algorithm works?
Calum & Zone: You guys have been stumbled. Thanks for stopping by!
I always stumble many of my pages if someone else doesn’t get to it first. I have no idea how the SU algorithm works, Zone.
I have been using stumble upon but have no idea that I need to add fan. Anyway I am starting to add friend and hope that we can really benefit and help each other through social media.
[...] recent surge in spam might have something to do with my latest StumbleUpon article as the traffic and subsequent comments jumped following the posting of that article. [...]
You sure have, and I hope I’ve been sending you some as well!
Ashamed to say I haven’t used all of these different options…I think I’ll give them a try this evening! So look for some Thumbs Up from me!
The most I have received in one day was about 350 and that was from just one stumbler review.
I’ve noticed that most stumblers do stick around but the ones that do have become loyal readers.
I still haven’t fully utilized SU (still figuring how to use it effectively.)
I’d be interested to see how many you can send my way this week
Great article Matt
glblguy: I’m sure I am receiving stumbles from you too. In case you haven’t been hit by an SU tsunami in some time, I have “discovered” your How to Protect Your Personal Data When Disaster Strikes article (an excellent warning) and that should do the trick.
Steve: I stumbled your weight loss blog, left a comment, and added some tags. FYI, twice I have hit the 4000 mark with most of my articles pushing past 1000 eventually.
FYI - You doubled my previous best. Thank you very much.
Wow that’s a lot of stumbles! I’m working on my profile but am not every close to where you are yet. Congrats and I’ll try to be more like you!
am not surprised! Between Stumbling and Sphinning passing along traffic just doesn’t seem that hard to do. Let me know when you pass the 1000 visitors mark.
Limo, that won’t probably happen for another year as it took me thirteen months to crack 500. However, when I do reach this goal, I will post that information to this blog.