Posted in
Marketing and Technology by Jeff Goins on 11/20/2008
I know that this isn't really a technology blog, but I just have to say this: I think you should use
StumbleUpon. If you're on the internet and reading this blog, then you're somewhat tech-savvy, which means that this is relevant to you. You had to know how to turn on that machine and even how to navigate over to this post (whether it be via search engine,
AIM's homepage, RSS feeds, or something else). Awhile ago, I posted my two cents about
why you should use Twitter. On a different note, but of equal importance, I'm now encouraging you to use StumbleUpon - whether you're an avid blogger, a e-businessperson, or just someone who enjoys good websites.

Not only is it a fun tool, but StumbleUpon is one of the most viral marketing strategies I have ever employed, and I have the perfect case example. I edit an online magazine called
Wrecked for the Ordinary. On average, we get 300-600 unique visitors per day. Average articles get about 100-300 page views. Really excellent ones get about 1000 page views.
Hands down, the most-read article we have ever published was a short, critical piece by
Lorie Newman called "
I'm Done with Playing Church." In it, Lorie called out some deplorable church practices and expressed a desire for deeper spiritual connections. For months, the article hid in obscurity, collecting maybe a couple hundred page views. Then, after I had read some convincing reasons to use StumbleUpon to increase organic traffic to your website, I started going through our archived articles and adding them with the "I like it!" tool on StumbleUpon.
Shortly after that, our daily traffic increased ten-fold. I saw that thousands of people a day were hitting Lorie's article, commenting on it, and a fascinating discussion about Christianity and the church emerged. Within less than a week of doing this, "
I'm Done with Playing Church" had over 20,000 page views. As I write this, people are still hitting it because of StumbleUpon (it's somewhere around 30,000 page views). The culprit: StumbleUpon.
Why did it happen, exactly? I don't have a clue. That's why they call it "organic traffic" - it's random, unpredictable, and magnificent. Nonetheless, I did some research and saw a trend - sites that utilize stumbleupon and encourage their visitors to do the same see this kind of random, unpredictable, viral traffic on a much more frequent basis than those that don't.
I'm not sure what use you might get out of Stumbleupon, but chances are that if you're on the web, then you've got something to share. My advice is to tap into the power of StumbleUpon, which has produced more fruit for me than sites like DIGG, Delicious, and other social voting sites all put together. If nothing else, StumbleUpon is fun (read these
8 humorous reasons why). In addition to bringing more traffic to your blog, business website, or whatever, you can just hit the "Stumble!" button on your toolbar (once you download it, of course), and it will bring you to a random page based on your interests, which may be one of my favorite ways to waste time online (caution for the potential addicts).
Happy stumbling!
Loved our time today. Hope we can do it again soon.
This is really great information, thanks!
Thanks man, good info. I'm glad you can do the legwork for us bloggers! Now I'm going to the stumbleupon page...
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