And we continue our sub-series within the “Don’t depend on any one tactic” topic. Our sub-series is dedicated to social media advertising and the first one was about Facebook advertising.

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Today we are talking about StumbleUpon paid placement (another older type social media ads that were among the very first)

Types of Content to Promote at StumbleUpon

One big thing for SU ads is that they are not made for some types of content that will do good at other social media ads:

  • It’s not good for too timely content (SU is capable of sending very constant stable traffic for months and even years: Timely content may irritate users (when it’s outdated) and decrease the efficiency)
  • It’s not good for contests and giveaways (or any other promotional efforts that may do good at Facebook)

The best way to describe SU advertising: It’s made for promoting content rather than landing pages (that’s a good best practice in #guestblogging as well)

Understanding StumbleUpon Ads

The point of SU ads is not actually getting paid visits. The real point is to EARN natural views because these will keep coming for months for free.

StumbleUpon Ads

Put simply:

  • Buying SU ads means your page will be forced to load when the SU user clicks “Stumble” button to load a random page based on his/her history and interests
  • Each time the page loads, the user is given an option to thumb up (=means “show me more like this”), down (=don’t show me things like this) or ignore and move on
  • The more people like your page after the paid view is spent, he/she tells SU algorithm “show this page to more people like me”
  • This is how the “Earned” views are generated, those you don’t pay for
  • The more “Earned” views, the more traffic keeps coming to the page

It’s really not always easy to tell which page will earn more “free” visits, aka which one will go hot on SU. The big part of the success is the content itself, of course (SU loves lists, images, creative angles, etc).

But the big part is lottery as well: the reputation of people who thumb up / comment, the category it ended up to get more popular in, some magic…

One of the best ways to use SU ads I discovered so far is:

  • Use ViralContentBuzz to check if the page has some potential in SU (usually it’s obvious if SU crowd is going to like it from the traffic that starts coming from SU)

  • Buy ads to re-enforce your coming success.
StumbleUpon VCB

[Good time to buy SU ads]

This way you only pay money when you KNOW it’s going to work (and that’s what makes it good for small budgets)!

Any more tips to share for SU advertising?

 

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Founder at MyBlogGuest
Ann Smarty is the founder of MyBlogGuest. Feel free to contact her if you have any questions about the platform.

3 Responses to “StumbleUpon Social Media Advertising for Small Budgets #myblogguest”

  1. Kalen

    Great post Ann! I have definitely noticed that Stumbleupon does better for some content than other social sites. I have been experiementing this in VCB. I would also add that in addition to evergreen content, it should be content that appeals to a wide range of people. Pages with lots of great graphics in particular seem to get a lot of traction. I don’t find that micro-niche posts (such as in-depth blog posts on specific topics or heavily technical content) really do that well. They seem to be a better for other social sites.

    I will keep testing my Stumbleupon strategy on VCB and consider paying for ads in the future.

    Thanks again for another great post!

    Kalen

    Reply
  2. Shannon

    I love SU! When I submit my content to VCB, SU shares are always the highest. Even over Pinterest (which loves scenic travel photos).

    Though I have to say that when I share content from my other sites, they do just as well with SU. I always tend to get the most traffic from SU too.

    When I re-branding my travel site and changing domains, I lost all my social shares – something I didn’t even consider when finally doing it. So I’ve got lost of work for ViralContentBuzz coming up!

    Reply
  3. Ryan Biddulph

    Hi Ann,

    Nice nudge back to ViralContentBuzz and StumbleUpon. Timely content counts. If I see a 5 year old post on SU I’m rarely sticking around. Sure you’ll see steady residual traffic even through oldies but paying to promote fresh, evergreen content makes sense.

    Thanks!

    RB

    Reply

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