Yesterday I wrote a little about stumbleupon.com. SU for short. For the first year I was "stumbling" all I did was use the stumble button and discover new websites. I gave thumbs up to the ones I liked, and thumbs down to the ones I didn't. The majority of sites I did neither, because I was afraid I would mess up the type of content I was receiving. Then I discovered that I had the ability to add and subtract my topics at will. Get a new interest, add a new topic, or in most cases, add a new topic, learn a new interest. In itself just using the stumble button is entertaining enough, but there is more.
Stumbleupon gives you a personal blog. You can use it like you would a traditional blog. Write down your thoughts and post them for others to read. You can use your blog to rate and comment on websites that you stumble upon, and the best part of all you can discover websites no one else has put on the system. When you discover a website you get to decide what topic it comes under, add tags, and be the first to review the site for content and usefulness. Once you have "discovered" a site it will start showing up when other stumblers with similar interests hit their stumble button. The more people who give the site you discovered a thumbs up, the further and wider the site becomes distributed. Nice to know but how can you use this information?
All of us here at ActiveRain have at a minimum a blog. Most will have a personal web site or page. Some will post information about homes they have listed on these and other web based media. Here is how SU can be useful. Any time you are viewing one of your pages that you would like other people to find, click on the thumbs up button and "discover" your page. You can then pick a category (such as real-estate), place tags Such as your name, company, community, etc) and hit submit. Now when other people in the stumble community are stumbling, if they have an interest in real-estate, they may find your information. This is a great way to drive additional traffic to your message. If you want to see what I am talking about, here is a link to my blog on SU. I use this blog for some business and some fun.
SU can help you drive more traffic to your web-page or blog. It will be highly random and mostly uninterested, but it will be a lot and spread all over the world. Since this is a totally free way to get information about you out to a large number of people, it is not a bad option to help with your overall marketing plan. Just don't spend the entire day "stumbling" and hope the phone is going to ring!
There is much, much more on SU. Stop back, I'll tell you more tomorrow.
