StumbleUpon is one of the best resources available for new bloggers for both finding new content in their areas of interest and for promoting their new blog and getting the exposure that they need. Let’s take a look at 7 specific reasons that StumbleUpon is a great resource for new bloggers.

1. Huge Variety of Detailed Categories

When using StumbleUpon to find content that you’re interested in and for learning more about the subject of your blog, it’s easy to quickly find relevant content because SU includes so many detailed categories. Rather than only showing content in a few major categories that wind up with a huge variety of content, StumbleUpon casts a wider net. You can set your interests and Stumble through sites that others have submitted and you’re almost certain to find some things of interest.

From a promotion perspective, SU is great for the same reason. Just about any type of content you can image will have a place at StumbleUpon. While some categories will have far more users than others, even those in the less popular categories can get new visitors much quicker than with most other social media sites. Most social media sites have some types of content that do well and others that don’t, but SU may be the most well-rounded in this way.

2. Connecting with Other Users

As one of the most popular social media sites, SU has a huge number of users, and it continues to grow. Regardless of the subject of your blog, there are other users out there that would be great to have in your network. StumbleUpon also has better networking aspects than most other social news sites. You can send messages/emails to other users, communicate through reviews of users and links, and share links with one another. Don’t underestimate the potential of SU for building a strong network of bloggers.

3. The Toolbar

What really sets StumbleUpon apart from other social media sites is the usefulness and functionality of the toolbar. You can quickly give a thumbs up to any page as your surfing, and assuming it has already been submitted to SU, there’s nothing else you need to do. The toolbar makes it simple and convenient to use SU on a daily basis without requiring additional time. Other social media sites have toolbars and browser add-ons, but none have as many different features and functions as SU.

4. Traffic is not All-or-Nothing

From a marketing perspective, this is the biggest reason to get acquainted with SU as a new blogger. Many people focus all or most of their social media efforts at Digg, and most of these people never see any results. Digg is an all-or-nothing game, but unlike Digg, SU can send a few hundred or thousand visitors with just a few thumbs up. It may not send that rush that can come with Digg, Reddit, or Yahoo! Buzz, but you’re more likely to get something beneficial out of SU.

The all-or-nothing part of social media can be fun when you’re on the winning side, but few new bloggers are likely to have the ability to hit the Digg front page. If more focused on creating content for SU, less bloggers would give up after just getting started.

5. The Algorithm Loves New URLs

While I’m not an expert on the SU algorithm, it’s pretty clear to me from experience that the algorithm favors sites that have not been submitted before. My two most recent blog launches have gotten a high number of visitors from SU even without a huge number of thumbs up. The more your readers keep giving your pages a thumbs up over-and-over again, the less impact each thumbs up will have in terms of drawing traffic. If you have a new blog, take advantage of this, it can be an incredible source of traffic for you.

6. Lasting Traffic

StumbleUpon is also different from other social media sites in that it can send visitors to your pages for a long time. While Digg and most other social media sites will only send traffic for a few days, SU will send less all at once, but will send more over the course of six months or a year. Lasting traffic is much more appealing to me because it will keep your stats more consistent, it won’t crash your server, and it’s better for branding and name recognition.

7. Branding Your Profile

More so than at popular social news sites, other users will pay attention to your profile and it’s possible to stand out and brand yourself in this way. Your avatar will have a big impact on this, but you can also post some information about you and your blog on your profile page that will help others to remember you. Building a strong and recognized SU profile can help to increase the visibility of your blog.

What’s Your Experience?

How did SU impact you as a new blogger?

For more information on StumbleUpon, please see:

• What Makes StumbleUpon Unique?
• 10 Ways to Be a Good StumbleUpon Friend
• My StumbleUpon Wishlist

For about the last year I have been an active user of StumbleUpon. I quickly started using the site after it sent a rush of traffic to my primary blog shortly after it was launched. After using the site for a while and becoming a big fan of the service, there are a few things that I would like to see added or changed that I believe would improve the experience for users. Although I am an active user, I don’t spend hours on the site every day. Some of these things may be possible now and I’m just not aware of it. If that’s the case, please leave a comment. Also, feel free to leave your own wish lists in the comments.

1. See All Users Who Give a Thumbs Up, Not Just 50.

While I am surfing on other sites I frequently take a moment to check and see who has given a thumbs up to the page that I’m on at the moment. Part of this is just curiosity and part of it is to find new Stumblers that have similar interests as me. Pages that get more than 50 thumbs up don’t show everyone. Obviously SU has a reason for doing this, but I would like to be able to see more, so it’s going on my wish list. If seeing all of the users isn’t going to happen I would settle for just being able to see the total number of users that have given a thumbs up.

2. See All Users Who Give a Thumbs Down, Not Just Those Who Leave a Review.

When a user gives a thumbs down without leaving a review it is not visible from the reviews page. I would like to see this list of users to be displayed just like the list of users who give a thumbs up. Of course, when I’m looking at one of my own pages this could be more discouraging than anything, but I think it would help to get a better idea of what people like and what they don’t.

3. Show Avatars for All Friends When Using the Share Feature.

When using the toolbar to send a link to one of your friends you’ll see an avatar for the friends that you most commonly send links to, but when you go to “all friends” you just see names. While I’m sure it would take a bit more space to show everyone’s avatar, I think it would improve the share feature. Sometimes I have a link that I would like to show with a friend, but I can’t remember their SU username. The avatars are obviously helpful for finding the right user.

4. Be Able to Share a Link with More than 1 Friend at a Time.

One of the complaints I’ve heard from time-to-time is the lack of ability to share a link with multiple users at one time. Currently, in order to share a link with five friends you have to do so one at a time. I have mixed feelings about this. I like the fact that it discourages spam by forcing users to manually share with everyone one-by-one, but at the same time I think it holds back the feature of sharing links. Personally, I’d like to see an option for sharing with at least a few friends at once, if not more. While I have a pretty good number of friends, I rarely receive more than 2 or 3 shared links per day. I wouldn’t mind changes that increased that number.

5. Show How Many Links Friends Have Shared with You When Using the Share Feature.

When you go to share a link with a friend you can see how many links you have sent to that particular friend in the past. This is really handy for making sure that you’re not sending too much to the same people, but I think it would be equally helpful to see how many links others have shared with me. If I could see that a particular user has shared a lot more links with me than I have shared with them, I would be more likely to send something. Likewise, if I saw that a particular user never shares anything with me I would make sure that I didn’t send them too many links.

6. Improved Widget that Shows the Number of Reviews or Thumbs Up.

The SU toolbar is really what makes StumbleUpon so unique. There are so many things you can do quickly and easily with the toolbar. However, one area that I think SU could use some improvement is with the widgets and buttons that they offer. Maybe one of the reasons that they don’t offer more choices is that most of the users just Stumble with the toolbar, so buttons and widgets aren’t as necessary as they are with other social media sites. Still, I would like to see a button that could be put on any page to show visitors how many reviews or thumbs up the page has received. On my primary blog I have had good success using a tool from Delicious that shows how many bookmarks a page has received. When visitors see a high number there it encourages them to also bookmark the page, and I think a StumbleUpon widget would have a similar effect. Basically, visitors on you page would see that 10 users have given a thumbs up, and maybe it would prompt them to do the same.

7. RSS Feeds for Popular Items According to Tags.

I’m pretty surprised this isn’t currently available, so maybe it is and I just don’t know where to find it. On the buzz pages you can see items that are currently popular for a specific tag (for example, see the design buzz page). I would like to be able to subscribe by RSS to get the links that appear on this page.

8. More Space for Typing an Email.

From time-to-time I’ll send an email through my SU page to another user. This functionality is pretty useful in my opinion, but the amount of screen space that you have to type the email is tiny. Why not give more space to see what you’re typing?

What are your thoughts?

What’s on your wish list? Again, if you are aware of a way to accomplish anything on my wish list, please let me know in the comments.

1. Add as friends those who actively stumble your submissions, stumble your pages, and/or those who have added you as a friend. Because of SU’s limit on the number of friends that you can have, you may not be able to add everyone that adds you, but you should at least make an effort to add those that help you in one way or another.

2. Visit the websites/blogs of your friends and stumble the good stuff. As a friend, you should ideally be eager to stumble the content of others, which of course will help them by sending visitors their way. I think we all appreciate friends that aren’t in it just for their own purposes. By looking out for your friends and being ready and willing to give them a hand (or a thumb in this case), you will show your friends that you truly want them to benefit.

3. Thumb up the pages sent to you by your friends (if the content is worthy). One of StumbleUpon’s unique features is its system of sharing content easily without involving email. Just by using the toolbar you can share and receive content. When your friends are sending something your way, be willing to give it a thumbs up if you like and appreciate the content. More than likely, others will return the favor when you share something with them.

4. Be an active user. As with other social media websites, StumbleUpon has a wide variety of activity from its users. Some people seem like they must be using SU 24 hours a day, while others only use the site on rare occasions. By being an active user you will obviously be more involved in the networking that is going on, and you can be more valuable to your friends. Especially with the limit of friends that can be added, no one wants to have friends that haven’t touched SU in months.

5. Share content with friends if you think they will appreciate it. StumbleUpon has an incredible audience of users that love to find high-quality content in their areas of interest. If you come across something that you think one of your friends would appreciate, why not share it with them? Sharing your own content is practiced by many StumbleUpon users and can be beneficial for everyone involved if you are sharing content that is appreciated by your friends.

6. Don’t go overboard with the share feature. One of the reasons I like SU’s share feature more than others is because it really doesn’t seem to be abused. I have no problem at all receiving content from friends, but with a large number of friends this could add up in a hurry if abused. Being a good friend does not involve sharing every post you publish on your blog with all of your friends.

7. Submit reveiws of other users. The SU review system is a great way to show friends that you care by writing something positive about them and adding a thumbs up. Everybody likes to have something nice said about them, so this is definitely a way to win the favor of your friends.

8. Tag submissions appropriately. StumbleUpon users are generally pretty considerate when compared to users of some other social media sites, but some of them can get very bothered if they think a submission is tagged inappropriately. StumbleUpon has many more tags than most other social media sites, so it forces users to be a bit more specific. By choosing tags carefully you will help users to find content that they like and you will help the owner of the content you submit by sending targeted visitors.

9. Follow the activities/stumbles of your friends. Every StumbleUpon user likes to see others getting involved with the content that they have submitted. By looking at what your friends have submitted you can find great content and you can also support the efforts of your friends.

10. Communicate with your friends through SU’s email system. One of the nice features of StumbleUpon is that you can easily send messages through the profile pages of other users. This is a great way to enhance the networking aspect of SU and to build the relationships that you make there.

StumbleUpon, on the other hand, has been able to develop a system that offers the best of sharing without all of the negatives. Here are 7 reasons that I prefer StumbleUpon’s share with a friend feature over those of other social media sites.

1. No email is involved

One of the major downfalls of Digg’s shout system and others that are similar is that users simply get bombarded with email. Most users want to find the best content, but not at the expense of having a mailbox full or these emails every single day. With SU a user is alerted within the browser (by way of the toolbar), so no mail is necessary for communicating the message.

2. It’s easy

Sharing a page, picture, or video that you like is easier with StumbleUpon than with any other social media site that I have seen. If you have the toolbar installed it can be sent in just a matter of seconds. There’s no need to leave the page you’re on and login to a particular social media site to share it. Everything you need is easily accessible from the toolbar.

3. It is not abused

When compared to the shared feature on other major social media sites, StumbleUpon’s is really not abused. I have well over 100 mutual friends and I only get a few shared items each day. That lack of abuse makes it much more enjoyable to use.

4. It discourages spam

By forcing you to share an item with no more than one friend at a time, it essentially discourages spam. You can still easily send it to more people (to my knowledge there is no limit), but it will take you much longer. As a user, I like knowing that the friend sending me the item has taken a few seconds to send it to me individually.

5. It is effective

With the lack of spam you might think that people choose not to abuse it because it doesn’t work in the first place. I don’t think this is the case. In the situations where I have shared my own pages with friends it has drawn some new traffic, and I have seen very good results from others when I have shared a page of theirs with my friends. As a user that is looking to find new content, it can be an extremely convenient way to find new pages, much more so than with other social media sites.

6. It takes you straight to the page

When you are receiving a shared item from a friend all you have to do is click a button on the toolbar and you’re taken directly to the page that they want you to see. With other similar systems you’ll first get an email, then you’ll click on a link in the email to be taken to the social media site, then you’ll have to click through again before you finally arrive at the specific page that is being shared. SU is just much quicker with fewer steps.

7. Communication is possible at both ends

When you share an item with a friend you’ll be able to type in a brief message to explain the item. And when you receive an item from a friend you’ll have the option to reply. All without even using email. The networking and communication on StumbleUpon is much better than many social media sites, and this is one example.

What Are You’re Thoughts?

What do you think of SU’s share feature? How do you think it stacks up when compared to other similar systems?

Here are 9 things that make StumbleUpon different from other social media websites:

1. It Sends Ongoing Traffic

With most social media sites, a popular submission will only receive traffic for a short time. It may last for a few days, but after that period of time the page will receive almost no traffic from that source. Even sites with thousands and thousands of active users, like Digg, typically only send a significant amount of traffic for a few days. However, StumbleUpon can send traffic for months and maybe even longer. The initial burst of traffic from SU may not be as big as with some other sites, but it will last much longer. This is just one reason why website owners love SU traffic.

2. Significant Traffic Can Come from Only a Few Thumbs Up

The traffic that comes from most social media sites is basically all or nothing. Popular pages may receive thousands of visitors, but pages that just missed becoming popular probably receive less than 100 visitors. There’s really no middle ground. With StumbleUpon you don’t have to have an immensely popular submission to get a few hundred visitors. Just a few users giving you a thumbs up and a review can cause a significant amount of traffic to follow.

3. The Random Stumble Feature

Of course, what really makes SU unique is the stumble feature, which will show you random pages (according to your interests and preferences) that other users like. You can even stumble through the pages that a particular friend has liked. While other social media sites allow you to see what others have voted for, the stumble feature is faster and more fun. If you have friends that like similar content as you, this is a great way to find new stuff.

4. The StumbleUpon Toolbar

Many of the major social media sites offer their own toolbar to be used in your browser, but StumbleUpon’s has more useful features than any of the others. With the toolbar you can of course stumble through pages, network with friends, share pages with others, and more. The best feature of the toolbar (in my opinion) is that you can very quickly and easily vote for pages or submit them to SU. No other social media site makes it so easy to vote.

5. Better Networking

Networking features are built in to most social media sites, but StumbleUpon outdoes its primary competitors. With SU it’s easy to add and maintain friends, join and participate in groups, and you can even send email to other users directly from StumbleUpon. I frequently use the StumbleUpon message system to communicate with my friends, even if the communication isn’t directly related to SU. The networking that I’ve been able to do on StumbleUpon has been more valuable than the networking I’ve done on all other social media sites combined.

6. People Actually Visit the “About” Pages

Most social media sites give you a place where you can write a brief profile of yourself, but these pages are rarely visited and read by other users. With StumbleUpon all users have an about page, and other users actually visit this page. From this page you can add a user as a friend, see what they have liked, send them a message, write a review of the user, and more. Your profile on StumbleUpon has much more potential to get some exposure and send traffic to your website than most social media profiles.

7. Less Significance of Who Submits an Item

With some sites, especially Digg, the profile of the user that submits an item has a huge influence on the chances of becoming popular. A top Digg user can submit a page that becomes popular, but if another user had submitted the page it may have only received 5 diggs and almost no traffic. With StumbleUpon, the profile of the user submitting an item doesn’t have quite as much of an influence on how many people see it and vote for it. Yes, it still helps to have a “top user” submit an item, but having an average user submitting the page doesn’t mean that it will likely receive no traffic.

8. Higher Time On Page and Number of Page Views

Social media traffic is notoriously impatient and this typically results in a short amount of time on the page and a low average number of pages viewed. This is still somewhat the case with StumbleUpon, but these numbers are much better than the same numbers representing traffic from other social media sites. SU users are a little bit more likely to explore a site and stick around for a few minutes.

9. Users Can Easily Explain Their Vote

The review feature of SU allows users to say anything they want about a page, positive or negative, which can be helpful to see why they are giving it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Most social media sites allow users to leave comments, but in most cases you can’t see how someone is voting and the comment at the same time. Additionally, the reviews left on SU are generally more informative and productive than the comments left at other social media sites.

What other ways would you say that StumbleUpon is unique? Is there anything here that you particularly agree with or disagree with?