Brand Marketing and IMC: Are You Ready to Stumble?

Posted on July 7, 2014

As a digital marketing professional, my job requires me to keep up to date on the most popular social media channels. I also have to understand if a channel is relevant to my target audience and if so, how I weave that specific social media platform into the brand’s overall integrated marketing strategy. In this post, I will be showcasing the social media platform StumbleUpon and describing how it could positively affect a brand’s overall marketing communications strategy.

What is StumbleUpon? A Social Media Channel?

Like the name suggests, StumbleUpon is a content discovery tool that delivers content based on your specifications (Fee, 2013). For example, if I created a profile and stated that I was interested in science and nature, StumbleUpon would present a variety of articles and websites to me through the StumbleUpon dashboard that are relevant to my interest. Some social media experts think of StumbleUpon as the “Pandora of Web Content” (Chang, 2011). StumbleUpon can also be thought of as a combination of a search engine, social sharing site, and bookmarking site, all in one!

The founders of the site created an algorithm that allows relevant content to be “randomly” selected and placed on a user’s StumbleUpon dashboard. After reviewing the graphic above, you will find out that the article selection is not very “random”, but rather consists of an intricate formula that takes into consideration the user’s past interactions with “random” posts (which includes a thumbs up, thumbs down, or share feature), the sites that the user identifies as relevant to them, and the types of individuals that the user has added as a friend on the site (Chang, 2011).

History of StumbleUpon

Created before social media reached the masses, StumbleUpon has had a rough ride since its creation in 2001 (Chang, 2011). For four years, StumbleUpon remained as a social media start-up. In 2005,  a group of investors saw the site’s potential and invested $2.7 million in the company.  In 2007, when social media started becoming mainstreem, eBay purchased StumbleUpon from the original founders for $75 million. Just two years later, the original founders bought back StumbleUpon from eBay for $25 million.

In 2011, in an attempt to refocus the site on becoming a recommendation engine, StumbleUpon deleted all user-generated content, including HTML blogging, stand-alone posts, and photoblogs (Chang, 2011). Today, StumbleUpon’s user base consists of very diverse demographic groups has an estimated user base of 10 million individuals (Power Marketing, 2014).

StumbleUpon Features, Functionality, Design and Usability

It is relatively simple to setup a profile and begin “stumbling”. When setting up a free account, you have the option to create a new stand-alone account or to sign-up through Facebook. You are then prompted to select at least five categories that interest you. From there, you are ready to stumble! The site’s integration with Facebook made the set-up process very quick.

When you start stumbling around on the recommended sites, the only real indication that you are on StumbleUpon is the toolbar that is displayed across the top of the page. The first page that I stumbled upon was a craft page that gave instructions on how to cut glass bottles. The page was relevant to my interests so I selected the thumbs-up icon on the StumbleUpon toolbar. When I am ready to move onto a new site, I click on the “Stumble” button.

The site also features a news feed on your homepage, where you can find articles related to your interests. You can also view other stumblers’ profiles and see which posts they give a thumbs-up to.

The site is also very integrated into other social media channels. You have the ability to share any of your stumbles on other social networks. This is important for brands and bloggers alike to consider, as StumbleUpon can become a big traffic driver for your site. Since StumbleUpon became accessible on mobile devices, traffic to the site has increased by 25% (Stelzner, 2013).

Why Should a Brand Care About StumbleUpon?

With StumbleUpon users indexing over 100 million websites, brands need to take advantage of the diverse user audience. Here are the demographics of StumbleUpon’s users:

• 55% are men
• 45% are women
• 5% are between 13 & 17 years old
• 40% are between 18 & 34 years old
• 55% are 35 years old and above

Whether your brand is targeting the 35-55 year old electrical engineer or a 21-34 year old woman interested in DIY projects, chances are StumbleUpon can help get your content in front of your audience (Power Marketing, 2014).

To learn about how your brand can benefit from StumbleUpon, watch my prezi. 

 

Sources:

Chang, S. (2011, October 25). History of StumbleUpon: From Startup to Influential Social Media Site [Infographic]. Retrieved July 07, 2014, from Distilled: https://www.distilled.net/blog/infographics/history-of-stumbleupon-from-startup-to-influential-social-media-network-site-infographic/

Fee, J. (2013, February 27). StumbleUpon: A Beginner’s Guide. Retrieved July 07, 2014, from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2013/02/27/stumbleupon-for-beginners/

Power Marketing. (2014, Janruary 07). CONSIDER STUMBLEUPON AS A SOCIAL MEDIA TOOL. Retrieved July 07, 2014, from Power Marketing: http://www.power-marketing.com/blog/consider-stumbleupon-as-a-social-media-tool/

Stelzner, M. (2013, November 22). StumbleUpon Marketing: How to Drive More Traffic to Your Content. Retrieved July 07, 2014, from Social Media Examiner: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/stumbleupon-marketing-with-nick-robinson/