Social Media Monday: Stumble Upon

Happy New Year everyone! We’re happy to start our Social Media Monday series back up again today with a guest post from Annie who explains Stumble Upon for us.

What is it?

StumbleUpon is a service that allows people to promote content that they like and discover content that interests them. When users of the service come across a post that they like on the Internet, they can give it a “thumbs up”. Other users can “Stumble” through recommendations that others have made to find content that they may like.

Promoting content

If you find a post or an article that you like on the Internet, you can give it a thumbs up on StumbleUpon. If you are the first person to do so, you will be given the opportunity to place it in a category. Putting it in the right category (e.g. Parenting, Babies, Health, Environment, etc.) helps other people who are looking for content to find it via StumbleUpon. You can also choose keywords for the page and write a review of it if you like. The more people who give the page a thumbs up, the better it is considered to be and the more likely it is that other users will discover it.

You can give a thumbs up to your own content and to other people’s content. Whenever I come across a post or an article that I like, I tend to give it a thumbs up. Not just mediocre content, but things that I think are really well written or really important. Although there isn’t a lot of information available on exactly how StumbleUpon’s algorithm works, my experience and observations tell me that people who give anything and everything a thumbs up, do not tend to generate a lot of traffic to the posts that they promote. On the other hand, people who only give thumbs up to really good content are more likely to generate a lot of traffic to those links.

If you do plan to use StumbleUpon to promote your own blog, you should ensure that you are also active in promoting other people’s content. It is frowned upon both by users and by the technical algorithm if you are only promoting your own content and your thumbs ups are not likely to generate any traffic for you if you only promote your own stuff.

You can also share posts that you like with your friends. I use this sometimes if I have written a post that I am really trying to promote (e.g. an important message or good cause), but do so selectively because I don’t want to take advantage of others goodwill. But I also use it to suggest content to people that I think they will like. If I read something that one of my StumbleUpon friends would really enjoy, I can suggest it to that person.

Tip: Make sure you are giving a thumbs up to the particular post or article that you like and not to the homepage. If you are reading a post from the homepage of a site, be sure to click on the link for that specific post and give it a thumbs up.

Discovering content

If you want to find content that would interest you, you can “Stumble” through content that other people have given a thumbs up to. When you sign up for an account, you can set your preferences in terms of topics. Then, when you click “Stumble” it will take you to content that has been recommended to you. That content is mostly content that other people have submitted because they thought it was great, but also includes some promoted pages (i.e. people who are paying to have their pages included in Stumble results).

You can also follow other people on StumbleUpon. I sometimes find interesting people to follow by checking to see who else has given my posts on a thumbs up or by seeing who else liked content that I liked. I then look at their favourites list and if I like the other pages they like, they I will follow them. Once you are following a number of people whose choice of content you like, I find that opting to Stumble only through selections of people I’m following tends to give better results than stumbling through the recommendations of everyone who uses it.

There are also other options on the site, e.g. looking at recent activity, top rated pages, things your friends have shared with you, and browsing topics.

If you use StumbleUpon and stay logged in while using Google, then your Google results will also show you the popularity of the post on StumbleUpon. I find this useful when trying to wade through lots of search results, because I know that the ones that have been submitted to StumbleUpon are pages that people liked and not just that had good search engine optimization.

Is it worth it?

There are so many different social media tools out there and it is hard to know which ones to use. Personally, I have tried a few of the different content promoting/content discovering tools, such as Digg, Reddit, Kirtsy, and so on. I have found StumbleUpon is the one that is easiest to use and that gives me the best results both in terms of traffic to my own content and in terms of finding interesting things to read.

In the past year, about 4% of my blog traffic has come from StumbleUpon. That isn’t a huge amount overall. However, it has been a significant factor in a few blog posts. Some posts that might otherwise have only been seen by my friends and followers, end up being seen by thousands more people via StumbleUpon.

One example is the post Mothers shouldn’t have opinions, which I wrote in May 2010. This one was submitted to StumbleUpon (i.e. given the first “Thumbs Up” by a reader of my blog. Some of my other readers also gave it a thumbs up, but it worked its way into the Stumble engine and lots of people who were stumbling for sites of interest came across it. In the end, StumbleUpon generated 3,217 views of that blog post and accounted for about 2/3 of the total traffic to that post. Here is a screen capture of the StumbleUpon page for that post, which will give you an idea of what StumbleUpon looks like and how it works.

How to get started

Do you want to give it a try? If so, here are the first steps to take to get set up.

• Sign up for an account at StumbleUpon.com: Go to the page and sign up for an account. If you are active in other social media spaces (e.g. twitter, flickr, etc.) you may wish to use the same username and avatar across all of them so that people will recognize you. Set up your preferred topics and other preferences.

• Add the firefox toolbar: If you are using firefox as your browser, I highly recommend adding the StumbleUpon toolbar. It allows you to Stumble through posts, share things with friends, give posts thumbs up (or thumbs down), access the StumbleUpon page for a page you are viewing (via “Info”), view your favourites, and more without actually visiting the StumbleUpon site. I find this really useful, since I tend to give things a thumbs up as I come across them.

• Friend/follow people: Hook up with some people you already know on the site. It will help give you a good start. You can browse through some of their favourites and give them a thumbs up too if you like the posts they have suggested. If you want to follow me, I’m phdinparenting on StumbleUpon.

• Get started: Start stumbling through posts. Start giving things you like a thumbs up. Like Kids in the Capital? Great! Give it a Thumbs Up. I already did and so did one other person, resulting in 90 page views being sent to the site so far.

• Be realistic: You won’t get great results right away in terms of the sites that are suggested to you or in terms of traffic to sites that you promote. It takes time and it isn’t always consistent. But overall, I find that by making it part of my process, it does yield results both for me and for people whose blogs I love.

Annie is an Ottawa-area mom of 2. She blogs about the art and science of parenting at the PhD in Parenting blog and loves it when people stumble her posts.

Image credit: StumbleUpon logo from Tipperary Institute on flickr. All other images are screen captures taken by the author of this post.

Social Media Monday: are you ‘LinkedIn’?

We are very happy to welcome our first Social Media Monday guest post. We love hearing from other parents that love social media as much as we do! by Melany

This week on Social Media Monday, we’re going to explore LinkedIn and how it is a great tool for expanding your professional network and creating business opportunities for yourself.

With over 80 million members, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, and according to Wikipedia, approximately every second a new member joins. People in all stages of their career use the site to connect with friends and colleagues, find experts and ideas and to explore career opportunities. It’s like a resume, a networking tool and an online resource all in one.

While you may already have an account with Facebook or Twitter, a LinkedIn account is different. The tools and resources available are designed to support career development and to help you manage your online identity to ensure it reflects the information about yourself you want prospective employers or customers to discover. Companies, recruiters and entrepreneurs all use LinkedIn to promote their business, announce job opportunities and to research prospective employees, vendors and clients. As a result, having a presence on LinkedIn is another way to make yourself or your business discoverable.

Often it is who you know, not what you know, that provides career advancement opportunities. Your next big career move, your next customer, could develop from from a chat you have with another parent on the playground or at a playgroup. LinkedIn can help you solidify those connections online so that you can keep the discussion going, strengthen those shared professional interests and broaden your professional network. If you are a mompreneur or owner of a small business, LinkedIn can help you to develop partnerships and connections to grow your business. It gives you the capability to evaluate potential business partners and vendors, and to keep in touch with past and present clients/customers.

LinkedIn also offers mobile applications for Blackberry and iPhone so you can access your connections, profiles, and network updates on the go.

Four Steps to Getting the Most Out of LinkedIn 1. Build your profile Through your LinkedIn account you can customize your profile, choose how your information is displayed, how you want to be contacted, and set your overall privacy preferences. Your profile on LinkedIn enables people to connect and reconnect with you. Use it to:

• provide basic information about yourself
• list your career history, education and accomplishments
• pitch yourself or your business
• promote the URL of your personal and/or company website, including a blog

LinkedIn integrates with several third-party applications to give you even more customization capabilities. You can stream your Twitter feed to your profile, syndicate your blog articles, upload presentations and examples from your portfolio, and lots more.

2. Make connections LinkedIn uses the 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree labels as a way to organize your connections.

Your 1st degree contacts are your direct contacts, the people you have a pre-existing relationship with, either through work, school or another shared interest. Connecting with someone on LinkedIn who isn’t a direct contact requires an introduction by a mutual contact or you inviting that person to connect with you. That person must then accept your invitation in order to become one of your 1st degree contacts.

A great first step is to sync your email contacts so that you can build your network of connections quickly from your real-world network. Then use the “People You May Know” feature to connect with others.

3. Grow your network

To grow your network on LinkedIn, a great habit to get into is to follow-up with people you meet in real-life or through other social sites like Twitter, with a request to connect on LinkedIn. To reach out to others on LinkedIn you can:

• Use Invitations to ask people you already know in the real-world to join your LinkedIn network. You can also use People Search to find and then invite people to connect with you on LinkedIn. Select the “Add [Name] to your Network” feature found on the right side of the user’s profile to send your invitation.  
• Ask for an introduction. The Introductions feature is great for reaching out to people you may not know directly. Having a mutual contact make the introduction on your behalf validates the request and can help put it into context.
• If you upgrade your LinkedIn account to a premium account, you can send a message to another member via InMail™. Your message is delivered straight to the member’s LinkedIn inbox to ensure your message and contact information is kept private.

When requesting an introduction or sending an invitation to connect, personalize your message so that the recipient understands why you are contacting them. Doing so provides relevance to the request and elevates its credibility by demonstrating your sincerity in making a connection. 

4. Build Relationships Use the tools and resources available in LinkedIn to develop and sustain relationships with others.

• Write and request Recommendations - Use this feature to reinforce your expertise and credibility as a job candidate or business owner. Invite colleagues, clients and other professional contacts to write recommendations for you that appear in your profile. Then reciprocate! These testimonials reinforce your stated work history, accomplishments and business relationships.
• Join or Create a Group - A great way to build relationships and demonstrate your expertise is to create or join industry or shared interests groups on LinkedIn. Use LinkedIn’s Groups Directory to search for a group by industry or keyword and then submit a request to join. Once your request is accepted join in on the discussions!
• Share your knowledge via Answers - Promote your domain expertise by answering a question posted to the LinkedIn Answers section. You can also pose a question to get fast, accurate answers from your network and other experts worldwide.
• Research Companies - Find and explore potential companies to work for or do business with. The information you see in the company pages comes from two sources— Capital IQ, a LinkedIn partner, and LinkedIn user data. LinkedIn has indicated on its FAQs for Company pages that companies will soon be able to edit certain information on their profile, such as description, headquarters address, website and revenue.

Explore!

The above is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes using LinkedIn to promote your professional expertise and/or your business. Keep your profile updated and regularly explore LinkedIn’s many features and tools to expand your professional network and create business opportunities for yourself.

Melany is the mom of a rambunctious 15-month old girl and is a self-professed social media junkie. She blogs at melgallant.wordpress.com about motherhood, pop culture, social media, and whatever else comes to mind.  Connect with Melany via her blog, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Social Media Monday : Twitter clients

We're back to Twitter today, and so far we've talked about the what/why, the how, the who and today we're going to talk a bit about some of the ways to start enhancing the experience! Many people who use twitter simply log in at http://twitter.com/ and work from there.  But there are many (like 100s) of applications that have been designed to work with twitter to make your twitter experience even better.

There are many reasons to use some of the different clients and today we're going to talk about two of the more popular ones that people use, and why.  I've asked Amy to help me out with Tweetdeck information since I only use one of the two we're going to be talking about.

Tweetdeck

Here are Amy's thoughts on using Tweetdeck.

I use Tweetdeck on my laptop, my iPhone and our iPad and there are a few reasons that I’ve stuck with it:

• It automatically refreshes, unlike the Twitter home page (the thing that bothers me most about the Twitter home page)
• You can mark tweets as read, allowing you to keep your stream under control
• You can create columns for different users or hashtags which helps to keep track of the things that are important to you
• You can tweet pictures right in Tweetdeck
• It shortens links automatically to save characters (and if you hover over shortened links it shows you a preview of what the long link is, which helps avoid nasty links).
• They’ve recently added a feature to the desktop that helps auto-complete user names (just in case you can’t remember if someone has an underscore in their user name, for example) – in the iPhone and iPad versions you can search the people you follow if you can’t remember exactly how someone spells their user name, though I find it’s a bit buggy)
• You can sign up for a tweetdeck account and sync your columns across multiple devices.

Here is the rundown on what I use and why.

Hootsuite

• Hootsuite is web based so you can log in to it from wherever you are without having to bring your own computer with you.
• You can have multiple columns and tabs to manage multiple twitter accounts as well as multiple views of each account (@replies, direct messages, hashtags, scheduled tweets)
• You can schedule tweets! This is key for Kids in the Capital and some of my other blogs and a great way to make sure your important messages are getting out even when you aren't online. Do you have a great blog post you want to make sure all your friends see but you know you won't be online at 9pm tonight when most of them are? Schedule it!
• You can have multiple users on one account (although this is now a paid feature).  This means that people can share the responsibility on a twitter account, something that has come in very useful for Kids in the Capital and my other blog Losing it in Ottawa. You can even assign tweets to people, letting them know they're responsible for dealing with a specific issue.  And when a different team member replies, you can tell the tweet has already been replied to and you can click to see what the response was.
• You can shorten long URLs right in the program
• You can tweet photos right from the software, although I've never done this and I don't know why.

There are many many more clients to choose from: Seesmic, Twitterfall and Cotweet are some. Plus, there are tons that have been developed for mobile phones, such as Echofon, and Uber Twitter. Oh! And I didn't even mention a lot of these programs allow you to manage your facebook and email and other social media from the same platform too (although I don't do that - do any of you?)

I ask that my tech savvy friends that are already using some of these other clients please share the whats/whys here in the comments, we'd love to hear.  And for those of you still using the web, have you tried any of the others? If you haven't do any of these features temp you?

Let's discuss!  And in the future there is a lot more to talk about - like twtvite and twitpic.  Oh, the fun never ends with twitter I tell you! :)

Lara is mom to 4 year old Kiernan and 1 year old twins Quinn and Juliette. You can read her blog at Gliding Through Motherhood.

Social Media Monday: Write, read, comment

by Brie As a new parent you discover the flip side of the city you live in. All of a sudden instead of knowing the hottest new restaurant, you can recommend the best playgroup in your neighbourhood. You may not know the latest movie playing, but you know the museum hours by heart. It's like this hidden world has been revealed. All you have to do is go out and explore it!

But there are times when you can't always be out at the park or the coffee shop or meetup with friends. Nap schedules, long nights and sick kids can keep you at home, no matter how much you want to be out. Stuck in a house with a baby that doesn't like to sleep and a toddler that doesn't like to stop, the lonely side of parenting can creep in. It did for me.

Enter social media.

Blogging, Twitter and Facebook are all amazing ways that allow you to connect with strangers, friends and other parents from the confines of your house. They are there waiting for when you have five minutes between changing diapers and doing homework. They are there when the kids nap or when they are happily occupied without you.

I love blogging because it has allowed me to find other moms to connect with that have kids of the same age, live in Ottawa or just plain fascinate me. I can peek into their lives when I have a moment, just as they can peek into mine when they find the time. While blogging is a great way for you to keep in touch with friends and family, and for them to keep in touch with you, it also opens you up to a whole other community of parents. They may not be the parents you would meet out and about in the city, but that doesn't lessen the connection.

There are three important things you need to do to build an online blog community: write, read and comment. Starting a blog and finding your voice are your contribution to the online discussion, but now you need to let people know you are here. Just like you would say hi to the mom pushing her kid at the swing beside you, say hi to all the bloggers you read and visit.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? When you read a blog, leave a comment.  But if you are used to lurking it can feel a bit weird to actually come out of hiding. I say do it! Think of it as a little thank you to the blogger. It's a thank you for sharing, for making you think, for giving you new ideas.

Leaving a comment is also a great way for other bloggers to find your blog. Chances are that the blogger you read will visit your blog, especially if you are a new commenter, and other readers might find you this way too. Two of my favorite bloggers are people I discovered when reading the comments.

While blogging may be something we do alone in the confines of our house, it is something that opens us up to the rest of the world. We write our words so that others can read them. By reading the words of others and commenting, you are beginning to build the connections that create online communities.

Am I right? Am I wrong? Tell me. Leave a comment. :-)

Brie is the mom of a 4 year old daughter “the girl” and 2 old son “the boy”. You can read her blog at Capital Mom.

Social Media Monday : finding people to follow

by Lara Now you're on twitter (right?!) but how do you really find more people to follow? How do you find people that you would actually be interested in following?

Here are a few ways to find people who might be interesting to you.  (If you're unsure if you should follow them, click on their name and try to get a sense based on their tweets and profile information if they'd be a good fit or not.)

Lists

Lists are a way to filter your twitter content.  People can create their own lists of their followers and separate them by "category" so to speak.  A great way to find new people to follow is to look and see what lists someone you already like to follow is on, and see if there are other people on that list that are similar.

To see what lists someone is on, go to their twitter age and select the lists tab (far right from timeline) and select "lists following".  Here is my list of the lists I'm on, in case you want to have a look.  And here are a few other lists to check out, some on Ottawa ,  some on parenting and one on parents in Ottawa. You can follow the lists but if you want to see these bloggers in your regular stream you will also have to individually add the people.

Search

There is a search bar at the top of Twitter.  If you search in terms for things that you're interested in tweets about those topics will come up.  Some of those people may be of interest.  You can also use several words to try to narrow things down.

Friends

I often add people that people I follow mention in their tweets, or sometimes I just browse the people that they follow on their twitter page looking for people that might have similar interests.  Follow Friday (often written as #FF) is something many people do on Fridays, taking the time to suggest some of the people that they follow - start following some of them.

There are lots of ways to find people to follow on twitter. In my experience in can snowball all of a sudden (I follow over a thousand people).  The more you interact with people, the more people will start to follow you.  In the beginning, I followed everyone who followed me (I don't do that anymore) - although beware of spam followers (they will have many less followers than people they are following and their tweets won't really make sense). And tweet me if you have any questions! :)

Or use our fancy new "tweet this post" icon right below this post and share it with all your new twitter friends! And then leave me a comment and let me know what you'd like to hear about next for social media Monday.

Lara is mom to 4 year old Kiernan and 1 year old twins Quinn and Juliette. You can read her blog at Gliding Through Motherhood.