1. Technology Toolbox –
Social Media and Stumbleupon
Digital Studio for Public Humanities
The University of Iowa
dsph@uiowa.edu
@uidsph April 4, 2013
2. The Summary…at the Start
Social Media are tools, not solutions
An effective plan and organized solution will always present
greater worth than just seeing what’s out there
Prompt your user
Best practices
Social media works best with one idea across several platforms
Platform = communication medium/website
Ex. Twitter is a platform
Each platform should offer something different
Be willing to experiment, and be willing to try new things
3. What is Social Media?
Social Media is a reference to a relatively new formation of
popular, interactive sites where people share information with
others
Includes different types of information
Also includes public profiles
Clear list of connections
Example: “Like” DSPH on Facebook
Hyperlinks (friends, groups, images) are the key
4. Why should I/we use social media?
Great marketing tools
Leverage/extend your message
Amplify your content; make it more exciting
Easy to use
Can be done in 15 minutes per day if you are smart about it
Can integrate into e-mails
It’s where your students are going
Most 15-24 year-olds only use social media to communicate
They hate using e-mails and won’t keep track of them
People will tell their friends about DSPH, and they’ll do it for free…
But only if the product is good and full of quality content
5. The Key to Social Media is Content
It’s about great content – quality blogs, photos and videos
If you make it, they will share it
Break your content into multiple platforms
Tweet about your blog, send Facebook updates about program
deadlines
Easier to break down manageable chunks of great content than
scraping good things from bad content
6. The Keys to Social Media
Reward different skills
Writing, photos, videos
Provide incentives to students to cater to their strengths
Break SM users into different teams
Writing group – blogging, Tweeting, linking
Photo group – Instagram, iPhone, digital photos
Video group – iPhone, MailVU, webcam, iMovie
If you have students select what they want to do, they’ll find
ways of competing against each other
Competition produces the best results
7. Types of Social Media
Facebook
800 million users (November 2011)
73% of all adult SNS users across the Internet use Facebook
Twitter – 200 million users (2011)
YouTube
Received 50% more views than in 2010
Threatens traditional advertising and marketing
Tumblr – 90 million unique monthly visitors
StumbleUpon drives 50% of all social network traffic.
8. StumbleUpon
A social media bookmarking site that allows users to “like”
websites and add them to their profile.
These websites are then shared with their friends through their
profile
“Stumble” button – added to a user’s browser toolbar when they
sign up
Sends a user to a random website, usually one previously
liked by a friend
StumbleUpon boasts more than 30 million users
Each user fills out a survey of their interests
9. Notes About StumbleUpon
After 24 hours a popular shared link will typically get zero
more “retweets” on Twitter, 5% more likes on Facebook but
will get 83% more “stumbles”
The half life of a link (the point in time when a link has
garnered half of the engagement it will ever get) is 2.8 hours
when shared on Twitter, 3.2 hours when shared on Facebook
but a page shared on StumbleUpon has a half life of 400
hours.
The average Stumble page view lasts 72 seconds which is 25
percent longer than the average web page view at 58
seconds
10. So How Do I Use It?
Let’s Get Started!
Install the Toolbar
Connect Around Interests
Install the Stumble Button
Use su.pr
11. Participate!
Active users of StumbleUpon receive greater traffic than
others
Receiving high ratings from other users increases likelihood of
“stumbling” by others
Don’t just create a profile, submit your site and walk away. No
increase in views
Use it to peruse interests and news
StumbleUpon has a very specific policy against using their
service for promotional purposes
12. Useful Links for StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon New User Guide
StumbleUpon User Statistics
Jeff Bullas - How to Use StumbleUpon for Business
The Lifecycle of a Web Page on StumbleUpon
5 Step Approach to Using StumbleUpon to Increase Traffic
Editor's Notes
Most social media is easy to use. The routine is what you really need to understand. The real benefit of social media is its ability to leverage your message and amplify your content as people take your message and spread it on their social networks. GetResponse conducted a survey and found that integrating social media and e-mail produced a greater than 30% improvement in click through rates.
Facebook – a site where you can create, submit and share personal information. A huge tool, everybody uses FB. Twitter –A microblogging service where users can post 140 character messages (“tweets”) like a text message. Unlike other social networks (ex. Facebook & MySpace) bc you don’t have to allow them to follow you. You just publish the information and they see the content.
StumbleUpon is a social media bookmarking site that allows users to “like” websites and add them to their profile. These websites are then shared with their friends through their profile and by using the “stumble” button, which is added to a user’s browser toolbar when they sign up. The stumble button basically sends a user to a random website, usually one previously liked by a friend. StumbleUpon boasts more than 30 million users. Each user fills out a survey of their interests, so there is definitely the potential for your business website to reach a broad and targeted audience.
1) Install the Toolbar The first step of course is to create a StumbleUpon account, but to actually use the tool in the manner I suggest you should also install the StumbleUpon browser toolbar to make it easier to find, share and communicate with the community. 2) Connect Around Interests StumbleUpon will show you content when you stumble based upon the interests you list in your settings. If you want to use this tool to discover Web content to share for business purposes take care when selecting these interests. There are many ways to network and use StumbleUpon in a social manner and connecting with people who share your interests is a good idea. You may also want to add your contacts or connect via Facebook to see if any of your current contacts and friends are using StumbleUpon. One of the secrets to getting your own pages shown to StumbleUpon users is to have your pages reviewed and liked by lots of other users. If you can build a following and then encourage your following to like each other’s relevant content you will get more from your efforts. (Warning here – creating groups just to Stumble content is not what I’m suggesting, but connecting with people with like interests can be a powerful way to get Stumbles.) The first rule of StumbleUpon is to give – share and review other’s people content and you may find the same happening to your content. You can connect with me on StumbleUpon here 3) Install the Stumble Button Another obvious integration of your StumbleUpon efforts comes in the form of a button or badge for content on your Web pages and blog posts. Just as many have installed the Facebook Like, LinkedIn Share and Google+ buttons to their content pages, StumbleUpon has a button that makes one click sharing of your content on StumbleUpon a snap. 4) Use su.pr StumbleUpon has its own link shortener called su.pr . This tool makes it very easy to submit your content to StumbleUpon at the same time you submit it to Twitter and/or Facebook. You will also get some nice tracking stats from using the tool.
If you’re not actively going to use StumbleUpon, this solution may not be a good fit for your marketing campaign. In order to get your website “stumbled upon,” you need to be an active user and receive high ratings from other users. If you do nothing but create a profile, submit your site and walk away, you won’t get any benefit from the site. Moreover, StumbleUpon has a very specific policy against using their service for promotional purposes. If you run a business and are only promoting your business’ website, you will most likely be identified as a spammer and kicked off the service. That is why it is greatly important to participate in the community.
