Picture by artct45

Just like shooting the perfect picture, or singing the perfect note, there is a way to provide stumblers with the perfect post.

I’ve been using StumbleUpon for a few months now and so far my Stumble! button has sent me to great sites where I discovered very informative and entertaining content. But I was also exposed to much less attractive pages. Just like when I fire up my email, I get spam and crappy content. The nice thing about SU is that low quality content gets buried fast, but still, the burying process requires stumblers…

Make It A Win-Win

The idea of this post is to tell you how you can take advantage of the enormous promoting potential of StumbleUpon, while making sure you improve the overall SU experience. That’s the win-win. If your traffic is worth it, traffic you will get.

I will now adjust my writing to let my stumbler personality speak. Forget Patrick the blogger, this is Patrick the Stumbler.

1) Bidirectional Rewarding

When I stumble on your site, I like to be welcome with something that grabs my attention at first sight. Something above the fold that makes me say Wow! It can be a killer opening sentence, or even a picture. Remember that my mouse is already on the Stumble! button, if you don’t want me to leave, you need to reward me with a little extra. See it this way, if you reward me, I’ll reward you back in return.

2) Be Creative

Ok, here’s a situation. Let’s say you are a magician and you want to show us some tricks. Don’t waste your time writing paragraphs and paragraphs to explain them. Instead, take a webcam and shoot a video. Make it funny, try to be original. You can probably deliver the very same content using video and it’ll be more fun to watch. Same concept, entertain me and I’ll reward you.

3) You Are Here

If the only way you can deliver your content is by writing it, then please make sure I don’t get lost. If you send me into paragraphs of text, use numbering or bullets to break them into segments. This way if I get distracted by a phone call, then at least I will be able to find my way back.

4) I’m Not In The Mood For Clicks

You know, I’m fine with the idea of monetizing your site with either AdSense or other affiliate products. But can we make a deal? Don’t pollute your content with in-post ads, it’s very annoying. Firstly, it breaks the formatting of your page, which is a pain. Secondly, while I am reading your text, I hate to get distracted by a huge 300X250 fat banner that flashes right next to where my eyes are looking, it’s very distractive. Take Darren Rowse for instance. His site, Pro Blogger, is displaying ads in the side widgets. But he keeps advertising out of the posts. If I feel like the only thing you are hoping to get from me is a 5¢ click, then you will in fact get a click, but it’ll go to the Stumble! button instead.

5) Back To Basics

To understand all of the above, I think it is important to remind folks what StumbleUpon is. Now, we all know it’s a toolbar that feeds websites based on your interests and friends’ favorites. And as a user, the reason I am using the SU bar is to improve my web surfing experience. Therefore, stumbling should be seen as an activity. It’s something I decide to do when I feel like I want to see the best of what the web has to offer. But if you use StumbleUpon to promote low quality content, then you pollute the system and you’re playing against the whole SU community. Remember the basics, SU should be fun and entertaining, so if you promote fun, fun will promote you back.

StumbleUpon is one of the best thing that web 2.0 has come up with. Let’s do our best to promote high-quality content and make sure we all enjoy each and every click on the Stumble! button.

Are you a StumbleUpon user? What do you like and don’t like about SU? Let’s continue the conversation over to comments.

Don't miss a post in 2008, subscribe to receive PiggyBankPie's articles by Email. Using an RSS reader? Subscribe to our Full RSS Feed.

This Post Was Sponsored by:

Add me as a Friend on StumbeUpon - Blogging Collaboration Starts Here, Join Me Over at StumbleUpon

Follow me on Twitter - Let's Tweet Together!

Need a Little Hug? - rssHugger