StumbleUpon is a powerful site for maximizing your content sharing strategy. And it can be the missing tool to crank your social media to the next level.

But before StumbleUpon can start paying off for you in spades when it comes to content marketing, you need to learn a few tips and tricks to get started. Why bother? That’s simple: StumbleUpon will increase your web traffic (and that’s content marketing) and it will also boost the life cycle of your content.

StumbleUpon is a fun social networking site, but it’s also a powerful social bookmarking tool.  Rule #1 is to be professional and make it easy for you to be found. Be sure you complete your profile with a complete bio and an avatar, and be sure and use a name that coordinates with your presence on social networks so people can find you. Using your real name for all your profiles creates a consistent presence for you and that’s just about always what we recommend.

A Secret to StumbleUpon Success: Be Social

Once your profile is complete, find a few friends. Don’t immediately add all your Facebook or Twitter friends, which is a common SU newbie mistake. You can only follow a certain number of people on Stumble and if you’re going to leverage the power that StumbleUpon brings, you need to have some savvy friends in this group to help propel your content. How to find them? Look for some Stumblers with lots of likes and views on their Stumbles. Also, as with any social networking site, don’t be afraid to ask for advice on Stumbling from these more experienced folks. Do a lot of paying it forward and earning your chops by sharing their content and liking their Stumbles. That strategy will pay off for you over time. As always, being an active part of any community is the key to success!

Pick Your Interests Wisely

StumbleUpon is a discovery engine. It helps you find things that you might be interested in, based on things you routinely “like” and share. This is kind of neat, so pick a topic you’re interested in and give it a Stumble. This can be a great way to research for blog posts or other content you might be interested in creating. You can Stumble all your interests or just pick one from the handy drop down menu.

To make Stumbling easy, add the free StumbleUpon toolbar for Chrome. Using the toolbar, you can:

• Stumble one or more of your topics.
• Give a page the thumbs up.
• Look for “more” pages like the one you are currently on.
• Share via Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter.
• Share via email or to other Stumbles using a drop-down menu. When you share to other Stumblers, this creates a notification for your friend that you have shared something and would like a thumbs up on it.

• You can change the toolbar to explore all your interests or narrow it down to one interest.
• The text bubble lets you know if others have commented on this post.
• It lists how many favorites you have.
• Clicking the house icon up in the right corner will take you to the StumbleUpon homepage.
• The “X” next to it in the corner will close the toolbar.

Cool. Now, What Can You Do With StumbleUpon?

While it’s fun to just browse, StumbleUpon can also be very helpful for finding relevant content to share across your other social media platforms and/or, as mentioned before, a great place to do research for blog post topics and/or relevant links to include in something you’re writing. This is where picking your interests helps you to find what you want to share with your followers. StumbleUpon is a HUGE resource that you can tap into for better content, more focused sharing and a place you can also just have fun!

How Do I Post a Link From My Blog on StumbleUpon?

The easiest way to Stumble a post you’ve written or something you’ve read is to use the StumbleUpon Chrome toolbar and from there, *like* any page with the thumbs up icon. If you like something that has already been added to StumbleUpon, the thumb will change from blue to green. If you are adding a new item to StumbleUpon (like a newly published blog post), you’ll see this:

On this pop up, you will want to add the link, complete all the information, tag it (SEO always matters) and write a comment. It says optional; however, this is a review for the page and adds more weight to your Stumble. Always add a review — it doesn’t have to be long, but be sure and make it interesting and fun. Lastly, don’t be egocentric. Don’t just exclusively Stumble your own blog content or the content from a client’s site. StumbleUpon likes variety, so take some time and share a variety of interesting content–that will help you reap the most benefit. The same could really be true of just about any social network and considered a best practice for sharing content, so keep that in mind.

Why You Should Get Serious About StumbleUpon

According to StatCounter, in the past 3 months 46.98% of all referral traffic was generated by StumbleUpon, with Facebook at 37.56%. Those are some serious numbers and they continue to increase. In a 12-month period, Facebook was in the lead from a traffic generation standpoint, with 46.97% — StumbleUpon was nipping at Facebook’s heels with a solid 40.10%, as shown in StatCounter’s graph (below).

Bottom line — you want your content to be seen by people? Of course you do — get it on StumbleUpon!

Another Advantage? StumbleUpon Increases Your Content’s Shelf Life

How long does your content stay fresh when you share it? Not long!

Per a recent infographic from the StumbleUpon blog, “after 24 hours a popular shared link will typically get:”

• 0% more retweets on Twitter
• 5% more likes on Facebook
• 83% more Stumbles!

Clearly, StumbleUpon is proving that it isn’t just a lightweight, random diversion in a sea of online tools. Serious bloggers are here sharing their content and you should be, too!

A Few Notes

Take it from me and don’t Stumble crap! People will give it a thumbs down and there goes your StumbleUpon street cred.

One glitch with StumbleUpon is that sometimes the views will be pretty high and the next time you go back they are down to one again. They are aware of this problem and hopefully will get it fixed soon.

To ensure that you are getting Stumbles on your blog, make sure that you have StumbleUpon on your blog or site’s share bar and list your StumbleUpon link wherever possible.

Now that you’ve received a crash course in StumbleUpon,  you have no excuses–get out there and start Stumbling! And if you’re already a fan of StumbleUpon, I’d love to hear how–and why–you use it!

Originally posted as a guest post for the fabulous Shelly Kramer at V3 Integrated Marketing.

Featured image courtesy of topgold via Creative Commons.

Read more: http://www.v3im.com/2012/01/maximizing-stumbleupon-for-your-content-sharing-strategy/#ixzz1pI20AdhH

Article by Peg Fitzpatrick