The Ultimate Social Bookmarking Content Creation Guide (Part 2: StumbleUpon)

This is part 2 of a 5 part series that covers creating content for the following social bookmarking sites. The other parts will be released over the next few weeks so keep checking back.

StumbleUpon

Creating content for StumbleUpon traffic has its similarities when comparing it to Digg, however there are still some key differences. StumbleUpon content can go viral at unexpected times, where posts on Digg can only hit the front page within the first 24 hours of submitting it. So when creating content for SU you may want to focus on a topic or theme that does not focus on an event that month or new product launch. The reason is that because content can get hot months down the road, if your content is time sensitive, it will not be relevant anymore. Just to play devil’s advocate for a second, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t write about current news/events and promote it on SU…it definitely can get hot.

You should also know that Stumblers are internet nomads, surfing the web to find new and exciting content that they never have seen before. Because you like or dislike content you Stumble, you can easily explore content that are tailored to your interests. They also have a slight case of ADD, spending only a short amount of time on each post they run across.

Just to give you a better understanding of the audience for StumbleUpon, here are some demographics for the social bookmarking site. As you can see the site is just slightly higher with males, but attracts a wide age range.

Content-Style

Because people will be finding your post through the StumbleUpon toolbar, you want to make sure the post is contained to one page. If you have a link that says “continue reading” or “part 2, click here” that takes away from the fun of Stumbling posts, because they would need to click through to another page, instead of Stumbling to another post/site.

You only have a few seconds to capture a Stumbler, so make sure you post has the following:

Eye catching headlines
A clear and compelling intro paragraph
Complimentary photos/images
Clean layout and easy to scan

Topics for Content

Similar to Digg, the StumbleUpon crowd are tech savvy users, who tend to enjoy topics including Web 2.0, Humor, Photography and Images/Videos. StumbleUpon actually gives you a list of popular categories that you can use as a guide to help formulate ideas for content.

I will say, from personal experience, posts that are funny tend to do extremely well in SU and have a much better chance of going viral.

Topics to Stay Away From:

Time-Sensitive Posts
Personal Posts
Long, In-depth Posts
List or Roundup Posts
Content that doesn’t fit in one of their categories

On a side note, because StumbleUpon is a bit randomized, the type of content that get hot, is not set in stone. Unlike Digg, which is much more defined as the type of content the users like, random topics can pop at any time.

Examples of Content That Went Viral on StumbleUpon:

Other StumbleUpon Content Creation Resources: