Popular Social Bookmarking Sites – StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is another popular social bookmarking site where users submit (or “stumble”) and share links to content they like. The site uses a voting system that’s fairly similar to the one at Digg. Users stumble content, and other users vote on the content, giving it a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. Content that receives a lot of thumbs-ups can make it to the front page of StumbleUpon and drive a lot of traffic to that site.
To join StumbleUpon, simply click the Join StumbleUpon button on the site’s home page and complete the online form. After you join, you can add the StumbleUpon toolbar to your Web browser, which makes it easy to stumble content with the click of a mouse. Also similar to the Digg system, StumbleUpon users can add friends to their networks and use their networks to promote and share specific content. One of the keys to StumbleUpon success is making many friends and submitting a lot of excellent content to build your reputation. Although it isn’t against the rules to submit your own content to StumbleUpon, there’s an unwritten rule to submit more content that is not yours than content that is yours. This strategy is easy to follow by using the StumbleUpon toolbar, which works in popular Web browsers. When you stumble upon a Web page that you want to share, simply select the thumbs-up icon on your StumbleUpon toolbar.
If the content is new to StumbleUpon, a window automatically opens, where you can enter details about the submission. If the content has already been submitted to StumbleUpon, one click of the thumbs-up button (or thumbs-down button, as the case may be) is all it takes to share the content you like.
Follow these steps to submit new content to StumbleUpon:
1. When you find a page you want to stumble, simply click the thumbsup icon from the StumbleUpon toolbar in your browser window. This step opens the StumbleUpon content submission window, shown below.
2. If text automatically populates the Title text box, check to ensure that it’s accurate. Be sure to check punctuation marks as well as the text in this box.
3. In the Review text box, enter a description of the content on the page you’re submitting. Make sure that the description you enter is relevant and useful.
4. In the Topic section, click the link for the category that’s most appropriate for your submission. If you don’t see an appropriate category in the list, use the drop-down menu to find more categories to choose from.
5. Click the appropriate radio button on the Adult line to identify whether the submission contains content that’s appropriate only for adults. You can’t submit your content unless you click the Yes or No radio button in the Adult section of the submission form.
6. Use the drop-down menu to select the language that the content is written in. The default is English, but a wide variety of language options are available to choose from.
7. Click the Submit This Site button. A Rating Submitted message appears, and the window closes automatically. That’s it. You’re done!
Filed Under: Blog Submitting • Popular Sites • Social Bookmarking
