5 Ways to Leverage StumbleUpon for Small Business Owners
If you run a small business, chances are you are too busy managing loose ends to have time to test all the newest social networking sites that have sprung up in the wake of MySpace and YouTube.
Here’s one for you that will help you sift through the barrage of gar-bage websites out there: StumbleUpon.
From the website:
StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests. Whether it’s a web page, photo or video, our personalized recommendation engine learns what you like, and brings you more.
After you register, complete your profile by telling StumbleUpon your interests. Install the StumbleUpon toolbar in either Firefox or (blech) Internet Explorer, and hit the “Stumble!” button. The service will deliver a page in its system that someone with similar interests as you has blessed as good.
The Benefits
In order of increasing value, here are 5 ways you, the small business owner, can leverage this powerful social networking tool to help your business.
- Discover interesting websites, photos, videos, etc as inspiration for blogging or writing topics. As you Stumble! and rate sites, StumbleUpon will learn about your preferences over time and send you more and more relevant content.
- Bookmark your Stumbling history for later perusal. StumbleUpon will keep track of what you like and don’t like, and allow you to drill deeper into topics that interest you. Use this for future reference when writing blog posts.
- Network with resourceful people online. Being that it is a social network, StumbleUpon is great for finding other people who share your passions and can provide solutions to your problems. You can find and follow people whose opinions you have grown to trust.
- Create a resource of useful websites and tools for your clients, patients, or customers. You can provide your constituents value by getting them to become a fan of yours on StumbleUpon and regularly sending them content you think will interest them. Great way to keep yourself relevant to them.
- Promote your own blog or website, increasing your online exposure. You can add your own content to the StumbleUpon database to benefit from some of that social networking mojo. As long as you push your own stuff in proportion to your other Stumbling activity, you can see develop consistent traffic from the service.
More Strategies and Tactics
I’ve been taking a course put together by Caroline Middlebrooke called StumbleRush. It’s a free, multi-part e-course that I recommend you take a look at, because it details several strategies for using StumbleUpon to promote your blog and website online.
In fact, it was Caroline’s gentle guidance that inspired me to experiment with StumbleUpon and sold me on its value to my online marketing efforts.
Take a look at the course, start Stumbling, and let me know how you make out in the comments.
Tags: small business owners, Caroline Middlebrooke, StumbleUpon, internet businessAbout
My name is Devin Best. I own my own business and am an advocate for small business owners. I see opportunity for people like me to explore blogging, podcasting, and online video as powerful ways to differentiate themselves and their businesses online.
I’m an Internet / social networking geek, among other things. My success derives from helping others achieve success and accomplish their goals online.
I come from a short line of short entrepreneurs (my dad), and business ownership is in my blood, which is one of the reasons I have historically been so unemployable. I grew up knowing that I would run my own business one day, but following in my father’s footsteps in the gourmet food industry wasn’t for me.
Turns out, neither was printing (my major in college), multi-level marketing (both telecommunication and health & wellness products), corporate out-sourcery, document management, video production, insurance, photography, real estate, computer network administration, or food service.
Go figure.
None of those occupations occupied me for longer than two years. I needed the paychecks, but held no illusions that I was serving my life’s purpose. The icing on the cake for me was realizing that my role as corporate out-sourcerer was to save somebody else money!
What a yucky position to find myself in! My mark on the world would be that I saved some corporate hospital chain $32,000 in one year. Great. Not the legacy I envisioned leaving my sons.
This is what brings me before you today.
My purpose in being here is to create a valuable resource for people like me who want to succeed in online business of all varieties. I am obsessed with information marketing and determining how to deliver the most compelling content and products to the people who most want it.
Listening to podcasts is actually what turned me on to the world of information publishing and marketing online. From there, I belatedly started reading and subscribing to blogs, and eventually started blogging early this year.
I have no credibility, only ideas. This blog is an exercise in the belief that what we can learn together will genuinely help you liberate yourself from some of the mundane struggles of your home business.
I plan to share with you my discoveries and techniques for both managing and marketing a small home business online. Along the way, we will explore such topics as:
- Outsourcing—the single most powerful tool available to the overworked home business owner. Learn the value of sharing that load with capable virtual assistants.
- Business Automation—Anything that can be automated, should be automated.
- Podcasting—how to get the attention of the people who can most benefit from your services and expertise using online, portable audio and video.
- Social Networking Sites and the Relationship Marketing Model. Crowdsource your way to better products and services by working with your audience!
- Web-based applications that enable your virtual home office to exist anywhere within range of a hi-speed internet connection
Learn as I learn. I’ll show you the implementation of new ideas, strategies, and tactics as they happen.
But hopefully I won’t just be bouncing ideas off the wall around here. I’d really like to get your feedback on the content I produce, whether you hate it or love it, whether what I suggest is realistic or not, or whether I’m on-track or off-base.
You are witnessing the foundation of what I hope will be a thriving community of home business entrepreneurs.
I’m here to keep the conversation going.
Why are you here?
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Tags: Devin Best, social networking sites, liberate, Business AutomationEmbrace the Digital Home Office
I founded Home Office Web Tools for one purpose: to teach home office workers, small business owners, and entrepreneurs how to transmogrify their businesses using Web 2.0 and social media technology.
In my search for ways to manage my various past businesses 100% digitally, the wealth of resources available simply confused my preoccupied mind. I had enough to do without experimenting with yet another untried, untested online service.
Mustering the time and focus necessary to discover reliable, authoritative forums and reviews proved too challenging to balance with family responsibilities, a day job, etc. and it occurred to me that other home business owners probably had similar problems.
Which is why we are here. I plan to share with you my discoveries and techniques for both managing and marketing a small home business online. Along the way, we will explore such topics as:
- Outsourcing—the single most powerful tool available to the Bartholomew Cubbins-like home office worker. Learn the value of sharing all those hats with capable virtual assistants.
- Business Automation—let he who wants to continually waste time doing repetitive work avoid this section. Anything that can be automated, should be automated.
- Podcasting—how to get inside the ears and minds of the people who can most benefit from your services, expertise, and message.
- Social Networking Sites and the relationship marketing model. Crowdsource your way to better products and services by working with your audience!
- Web-based applications that enable your virtual home office to exist anywhere within range of a hi-speed internet connection
- The iPhone—the essential piece of technology for your journey of liberation from your business.
Look for regular blog updates and an upcoming weekly podcast, where we will discuss these online tools and how to best use them to accomplish our personal and professional goals.
Looking forward to serving you…
Devin Best
Tags: virtual assistants, virtual home office, social networking sites, home office workerPolls
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