Everyone loves traffic.  It’s a huge, huge ego issue.  Hubris even.

I personally want as many people to enjoy and congratulate me on my pointed insights as possible.  The more influential people that do so, the more I can tell myself how great I am.

This is where people get into trouble with StumbleUpon.  People just want to see that traffic bump.  They know it won’t last long, but it’s so good when it’s there.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Stumble.  I’m approaching 8,000 thumbed up websites.  But I feel like there is an inherent misunderstanding going on when it is used for self promotion.

Stumble Upon users are notoriously fickle and immune to advertising.  They are in it for their quick fix.  If they run into something that is outside the purview of what they are looking for (which they have no idea what that is), they will Stumble away, or even more horrible, give the site a thumb down.

We have a couple articles that we’ve played around with for promotion on StumbleUpon, and it’s interesting to see their numbers.  Even pages that have StumbleUpon users going so far as voting on subjects will receive relatively low numbers in terms of ‘thumb ups’.

While it may be fun to self-promote with StumbleUpon, be wary.  It’s users do not care about you or your products unless they are highly eclectic.  Rarely, very rarely, even when I find a site I think is genuinely interesting, do I save it for return.  Your mind isn’t in it for the cool find, it’s more so in it for the quick fix of “cool, entertain me”.  While you may want a quick fix to lagging traffic, keep in mind that your StumbleUpon detour will likely end in unreturned feelings.  I would say that on the overall, maybe 5% of any one blog is actually going to appeal to Stumblers.

If you want to play around with StumbleUpon for pure link building strategy, you must create something worthy of linkage… linkbait if you will.  Make it quick and dirty fun.

StumbleUpon, for most, is that girl that you tried too hard with and ended up rejecting you.  Don’t be that guy, choose the stuff you promote carefully.

In case you haven’t seen this site, it’s worth checking on for mutliple reasons: http://www.midomi.com

At first glance it looks like a site that is for searching music, even having the unique ability for users to search music by singing or humming a song into their computer microphone. The site then generates a listing of results that closest match your tune. However, there is another wonderful attribute to this site - the ability to actually become a star on the site. You’re able to record your singing clips and post them to the site for others enjoyment. Interstingly enough, you find yourself on this site for way too long listening to everyone. It’s like online karaoke! And really, who doesn’t love that?

Check out how the site works: http://www.midomi.com/index.php?action=main.video&from=landing