Stumble Upon Something Addictive- New Media Part 2
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Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes
“New Media” includes anything from blogs, podcasts and wikis to things such as RSS feeds and webinars (seminars on the web).
My first part of this series was about RSS feeds. If you are not familiar with RSS feeds then consider yourself behiiiind, baby- behind in technology. To catch up follow my tutorial. Subscribing to RSS feeds will save you so much time during the day and make things so much more convenient.
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Recently, I’ve stumbled upon something addictive – something that can be extremely beneficial for you in terms of marketing, but could also become an addiction that wastes your time. And I don’t want to be the one responsible on the Day of Judgment for people wasting their time and not doing beneficial things, so as a disclaimer: I waaarned you.
So what is this beneficial/non-beneficial thing, you ask? Stumble Upon, of course.
Stumble Upon is a tool that lets you “stumble upon” websites of your interest (Islamic websites, photography websites, media websites…etc). You can even submit your own website or blog as well as any other website you like to this system. People submit their pages so that other people can come across them randomly- with the hope that they will bookmark it, add it to their RSS feed or add it to their favorites and come back to it. This is a good tool for marketing, because you can reach out to (and are more accessible to) your target audiences.
So how does this baby work?A little tutorial I like to call: “Waddle Waddle Boom Bam Waa” <– that would be a little baby trying to walk…. stumbles upon a toy… and … well, you get the point. I know, therapy tomorrow inshaAllah. Sooo…
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Step 1: Go to www.stumbleupon.com, and create an account by clicking the “Join Stumble Upon” button.
Step 2: Download the “Stumble upon tool bar” by also clicking that button also on the front page. I have to admit I HATE extra tool bars, but this one really doesn’t bother me because I use it all the time.
Step 3: Pick the category of websites you want to “Stumble Upon.” I suggest cats, “Meow.”
Step 4: If you want to start randomly coming upon websites, click the “Stumble!” button on your tool bar. And you if you like or dislike the website, click the “I like it!” button or the thumbs down button.
Step 5: If you would like to submit your own site or another website you like, then simply press the “I like it!” button, and if it was not already submitted to Stumble Upon, a new window will pop up asking some basic info on the site you are submitting.
I don’t recommend always stumbling upon sites for a couple of reasons: some of those sites have music that automatically start playing when you come across it and some have bad advertisements or images. So It’s best to use it for your advantage without going into something haram. Wallahu ta’ala alem.
But this was by far the funniest thing I’ve ever stumbled upon: (I told you to add the cat category, 
)
Enjoy,
Shirien
AlBaraa Says: 03.03.08 at 12:12 am
One of the great things about StumbleUpon is that, if want to increase traffic a lot, you can actually pay them $25 for 500 stumbles. If you are selling something online, and you use this marketing method, depending on your site design and conversion rate, you can make a good sum of money.
themanoffewwords Says: 03.03.08 at 1:46 am
Yo that’s the funniest thing you ever stumbled. A cat being abused. DUDE!!! I want my 2 minutes back!!!!
HK Says: 03.03.08 at 7:56 am
I was just wondering…how much of a role does giving a page on SU some whole bunch of tags have on its turning up in other search engines?
AlBaraa Says: 05.03.08 at 11:56 am
HK, read this article re how StumbleUpon affects search engines:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/22/stumbleupon-expands-social-search-across-the-web/
AlBaraa Says: 05.03.08 at 12:06 pm
Shirien,
Stumble upon has an advertising section on their site:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/ads/
If you create a campaign, you can pretty much buy stumbles for a nickel a piece, in bundles of 500..which equals $25. You can control the exposuires so that you are targeting campaigns by category, location (country, state, city), and demographics (age, gender).
The key thing is to convert that traffic into money. That is dependent on how well your site is designed to get peopel to buy, buy bigger, and keep buying. The more “thumbs up” you get, the more free stumble traffic you get in the future. Possibily for years.
I haven’t tested it out. Once I have something that i can actually sell, then I’m gonna give it a try inshaAllah. — one thing is important, you don’t always want people stumbling into the main money site, but rather…the bait. If they see the ‘hook’ persay, then they will run away out of fear of being scammed. Thats why its important to have a promotional item that people go to that assures the fact that what ever you are offering them is the best possible decision they can make b/c its of massive benefit to them.
things like:
- videos
- lists; ie “top 10 things to make your morning better”
- quizzes (these are huge on facebook)
- tests; “take the [add brand here] challenge”
- Interactive video; Jeep, and Scion had a viral campaign of this sort going
- Unique images
- tools
- things that teach people how to do something; you can find plenty of this out there.
Shirien Says: 05.03.08 at 8:39 pm
that’s actually pretty cool, and pretty cheap. what about google ads? How much do they range from? when i was doing things with Mag Pics our main focus was compiling these monster lists for google search ads. I never knew i could come up with thousands of search words for sci-fi. Then I quit, cuz I didn’t feel comfortable promoting films that could (and most prob. had haram elements)
At least I learned a lot about viral marketing.. but so not worth compromising my deen.
Egyptian Gumbo » Blog Archive » Secrets Exposed; Bloggers, Stumblers and Muslims Says: 29.04.08 at 9:42 pm
[...] “Stumble Upon Something Addictive: New Media Part 2” [...]
LivingHalal Says: 13.05.08 at 4:04 pm
AlBaraa,
I tried the ads, I selected a narrow criteria, e.g. Muslims in Houston, got no single hit
Well, I guess it’s a good way to see how many Stumbler has interests in Muslim and living in TX.
Shirien Says: 14.05.08 at 5:42 pm
Akhi, I’ll fill you in soon with the details of the campaign. What you just stated is EXACTLY why such a campaign is needed. it’ll be awesome inshaAllah.
Gretchen Besa Says: 31.05.10 at 9:58 am
Thanks very much, I have found this extremely nice!