Stumbleupon: Traffic Generator Or Social Networking Site?

Stumbleupon Logo></span>Stumbleupon’s influence is continuing to grow, with more people using it to gain traffic for their websites.</p>
<p>It is easy to upset some members of the site though, especially if they regard you as a spammer.</p>
<p>I have seen this happen to a couple of people.</p>
<p>Some even dislike people telling others how to use the site.</p>
<p>The mistake that many people make is that they treat the site as just another traffic generator, when in fact it is a social networking site in its own right.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the traffic that it sends my way too.</p>
<p>Social networking means relating to others, not just using different platforms to generate traffic to your site.</p>
<p>I have benefited from quite a number of people stumbling my pages, and I greatly appreciate it.</p>
<p>The jury is still out as to whether that traffic sticks or not though.</p>
<p>That is why I would prefer to relate to people on SU, and let the traffic take care of itself.</p>
<p>As <a href=Kaila Colbin said recently on ProBlogger “…people and traffic are two different things…”

In short, treat people like human beings, and not stats, and the traffic will take care of itself if you are giving people what they want.

The Web 2.0 revolution seems to become a hybrid at times with marketers forgetting the distinction between people and traffic.

For a really well written and concise post about Stumbleupon, visit Shari Voigt. Shari talks about thumbing and reviewing sites on SU, and lots more as well!

Allan Cockerill's Facebook profileFeel free to join my social networking experiment!

If you are a member of Facebook, feel free to add me as a friend by clicking my profile badge to the right.

I’d like to cross network if you like, and have my friends from one platform add me on others that they are members of as well!

If you are a member of Digg, Stumbleupon, Faves or Twitter, feel free to add me there as well, and send me a message when you have done so.

My username on these sites is Ozegold. Once you add me and send me a message, I will add you in return.

Remember though, if you just expect me to routinely bookmark your site, then it’s best not to bother.

If you want to develop an online friendship though, and network with similar minded people, then go right ahead!

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3 Comments

  1. Thank you, Allan. I appreciate your comment and the link back to my post.

    Speaking from my own experience, some people are natural networkers online and off. Others really have to work at it. I think that’s accentuated online. It’s easy to “add a friend,” but harder to to really become friends.

    Maybe we need to start some conversations about taking that next step … something along the lines of “here’s where you can reach me, and I’d really love to hear from you about …” We try to do this on our blogs, but relationships are built behind the scenes, one-to-one. What are your thoughts on how to encourage this?

  2. Hi Shari,

    I agree with what you say about friends, but then I guess that any relationship is going to be sadly lacking if no time and resources are invested in it.

    Online friends are in a slightly different category to offline friends, in that it is hard to see the person behind the profile.

    This means that it usually takes a little longer for people to really get to know each other.

    I have a number of bloggers that I relate to on Skype, via email and the Facebook message system, plus Stumbleupon of course!

    I am presently building a small cooperative of writers who are able to meet online and work together.

    Perhaps something like that would be a good place to start?

    Cheers

  3. Thanks for the informative post.. and thanks for adding our comment to the blog. I am subscribing to your feed so I don’t miss the next post!

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