Let’s talk promotion—wait, actually, let’s talk about one of the easiest social platforms to use for promotion:  StumbleUpon.  With plenty of ways to target your audience, and a user-friendly dashboard for those who might get a little skittish with more complicated social networks’ advertising options, StumbleUpon makes it simple, manageable, and above all else…fast to achieve results!

All you need to get your StumbleUpon campaign up and running is a URL to key content, which can really be anything – a website, infographic, photo album, video, etc. Whatever you choose, just remember:  the better the content, the better chance you have for organic (free) stumbles and increased Likes. Organic stumbles are those received when your page is shared after being landed on. You can also get organic stumbles from receiving a lot of Likes within Stumbleupon. Pages that consistently receive a “thumbs up” are more likely to be shown to stumblers.

Once your content is set, the next step is targeting.  You can choose up to 10 categories and sub-categories, like music, media, and hobbies; then decide which age groups, electronic devices, gender and location by which to target. You can break each campaign out by topic, location, age, and more. StumbleUpon makes it really easy to test all kinds of targeting to see what works best to grab the attention of your specific audience.

Another great thing about promoting with StumbleUpon is that the interactions are extremely social.  People can like (or dislike!) the pages they view, as well as share pages to extend their social life. So, what’s a key factor in making sure people like and share what you’re showcasing? An awesome landing page. If you target all the right people but haven’t got a great landing page that the stumbler can easily navigate, well…it basically negates doing a campaign from the start.

Key tips for StumbleUpon campaigns:

1. Always make sure that the URL is filled with the right content to reach the right target audience (aka YOUR target audience)!
2. If directing to a website, make sure that site is up and running! Use the main landing page as a promotional opportunity to sell yourself or the product at hand.
3. Target the audiences you know will be interested. Sure, sometimes there’s overlap within segments, but in general, broad targeting will result in more dislikes than likes.
4. Keep the campaigns short and frequent. You don’t want to inundate the same folks with the same content. Switch up the landing page, but continually brand yourself by promoting through short, frequent campaigns. This is also the most budget friendly!
5. Remember to continually engage with the people who initially stumbled onto your site. Keep fans interested by continually updating – provide new content, or a call to action for them to sign up to a newsletter, or a download giveaway. StumbleUpon opens the door for new fans – but then it’s up to you to give them something new and cool each time they visit!

Ready to run your own campaign on StumbleUpon? Send me an email  (laurenfanbridgecom)   or check out our other Marketing Solutions offerings for Facebook, Twitter, and more.