Every blogger concerned about his blog’s exposure and traffic levels has a StumbleUpon account, right? Oh, you don’t? Then you should. But never mind that, let me tell you about some less happier experiences on StumbleUpon.

I’m one of those StumbleUpon users that usually discovers and votes on pages when he has time, when he finds something really interesting, or to help out his SU friends. But sometimes, being friendly and willing to help is not enough, sometimes, somebody has to take it over the top. Here are 5 guaranteed ways to piss me off on StumbleUpon.

Method One

You visit my profile, do a bit of research and message me, telling me how much you love my stumbles and my blog, and how much you’d love to be SU buddies. Flattering right? After reading the message I’m checking if that person has added me as a friend and I find that he didn’t.

So why would you expect me to add you first when you’re the one approaching me? Add me, and If I’m convinced I might add you back. That’s how it goes.

Method Two

Starts exactly like method one, messages and flattering included. Only that this time, the user added you as a friend. That’s pretty nice, let’s add him/her back, which you do. Two days later – surprise! – you’ve been removed by that user from the friends list. This basically means you’re his fan now, while he/her is some kind of a SU god. Dirty move right? You know what to do next.

Method Three

We’re friends, and as friends do, I like to help out. You ask me once to discover a story, ask me if I can review a page, all good. But with time, you see that I’ve voted on most of your stories, so you start sending 6-7 review requests per day, 2 or 3 out of the same website, and probably you’ll throw in a discovery too. OK, when was the last time I’ve asked you to help me out? 2 weeks ago! Let’s keep things fair play.

Method Four

We’re friends and you send me stories to stumble and review. I’m OK with that, and sincerely, most times I take the time to check the page out and post a SU review too. I know it helps a lot.

When my time comes to ask for you help, you hurry to hit that thumb up button. Good, I can understand that once, twice, but every time? A review for a thumb sometimes does not seam like a good deal.

Method Five

We’re friends and the friendly SU activity goes just great, but there’s something that you do that I really hate. I understand that we’re best friends and all that, but do you really have to send me “hug” and “thank you” pictures and messages every 30 minutes? Once is nice. Twice is flattering. More is spam.

And to understand why this attitude is so frustrating check this: StumbleUpon sends email notifications when you receive private messages, which is great. The problem is that the only link contained in that email is a link to their sponsorship page (smart isn’t it?). From there to my inbox I have to click 2 more times only to find a message saying the same thing as the one before and the one before that. And that’s frustrating.

Respect Your Friends

So, dear friends and StumbleUpon users, be careful how you treat your friends because that “Remove from friends” button is pretty accessible. Give without asking anything in return and you’re guaranteed to receive more than you would have expected.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

The social bookmarking frenzy goes on. For quite a while I’ve been waiting for a redesign of del.icio.us, something that would really make me want to use it at its full potential. But that did not happen and I’ve continued to gather bookmarks the classic way, in my browser and through StumbleUpon or FriendFeed. Still it requires a lot of time to sort everything out while searching for something you’ve discovered 3 months ago. That until the day I got my SecondBrain!

I know, it sounds crazy, but that’s what SecondBrain is for. A place where you can collect your links, organize them through tags and collections and share them with other users. The good part is that you can import all your bookmarks from most of your favorite social bookmarking and social networking services available at this moment and track them all from one place.

If we take a look at how the folks at SecondBrain describe their services we won’t see anything revolutionary

• Import content from all your favorite services in one place
• Browse and search all your content
• Organize content into collections
• Keep track of your content in a single library
• Share your lifestream
• Find people through content, and content through people

but the difference is made when you start using the site.

This is how the website’s home page looks:

Signing up takes only a few seconds and after that you’ll step in a good looking, friendly environment, one that somehow reminds me of MySpace’s layout, from a structural point of view.

There are a few things that I don’t quite like, especially the fact that on the dashboard I see additions from friends of friends, and I have no visible option to turn that off. Perhaps I need ta take a closer look at the preferences, but still, that kind of option should be pretty much obvious. At least you have the option to display only your own updates.

Considering the website’s design, I find that a few icons are too big for this kind of service. I need to focus more on the content than having a page filled by only four or five icons.

Where there’s potential, there are also premises for evolution

SecondBrain is getting ready for a BETA 2 stage, and that’s why I’m sure that most problems will be solved and I’m also guessing that if you sign up with them, your feedback will be greatly appreciated. Further more, there’s also a contest for those who sign up in this period and a chance to win a MacBook Air.

One policy that SecondBrain has is that the added content will be manually reviewed by their team (in the background of course, as you don’t need to panic about not getting approved) and the most valuable additions will also be rewarded.

So, there you go, more reasons to try it out. I did, and I’m happy with it, at least for the fact that it’s still a BETA, and where there’s potential, there are also premises for evolution.

The day I got my SecondBrain was the day my browsing history became more accessible.

This is how my profile looks:

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Social bookmarking, social networking, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Twitter, everybody’s talking about them. Every known blogger is telling you how important it is to build a strong social media profile, how you can hit the jackpot of receiving thousands of visitors every day through submitting your articles, or having your articles submitted by your readers to the above mentioned websites, and many others.

Well, social networking is obviously useful and helpful; just don’t get your hopes up. You’re probably wondering why I’m writing this post, when only a few days ago, one of my posts has received a lot of love from social media websites. The answer is simple: While StumbleUpon sent a few thousand visitors to that article, another website (Reddit) did what it lately seams to be doing best.

Introducing link hate

No matter how important your article might be – you could be Jesus on your second coming, talking about the real Judgement Day – the first reaction you’ll see to your post is a few down-votes. This is the tricky part, you know you’ve written a good post, and when checking your Google Analytics you see no visits from that social media site. If so, why the negative response?

Look no further, link love is DYING! Who are you? Just another new kid on the block, trying to share your views with the rest of the world! You’re simply naive if you’re thinking you’ll make the front page through those easy-as-1-2-3 steps every website is talking about. Social media has long time ago transformed into a huge traffic provider, and where there’s traffic involved, so are money, lots of them.

It’s enough to scan some of the biggest forums and see those offers of over 1000 stumbles for only $10, and they are only the small fish of the industry. Sharks are a lot more savage! That’s the way things go when you’re a newcomer. Don’t expect link love, because some people can take your articles down, only to make sure their submission have a clear path to the top.

By now you’re probably thinking how come post from Smashing Magazine, TechCrunch or other famous websites hit the front page regularly. Don’t. They have the big bucks to spend on advertising, you probably don’t. They have a huge reader base, you probably don’t. They are famous and you’re probably not. It’s as simple as that.

Then, what else is there?

So, what can you do? Focus! Focus on being better. Focus on keeping your reader base close and on growing it. Don’t ignore the social media, as it’s still a good way to tell the world: I’m here, I exist and I have something to good say. But don’t expect the Holly Grail out of it!

If you’re looking for link love, make friends, good, close friends. If you’re looking for traffic, have your wallet near. Otherwise, you’ll probably get link hate.

Photo credits to Ayhan Yildiz.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive