Q. I just began to write articles for a new client and their editor has been marking up everything I’ve written so far and returning it to me to correct. Never before have I had so many problems getting work approved so what gives here? — Rose, SC
A. Thanks for your question, Rose. I have one question to ask you: are you and the editor on the same page as far as using style guides?
That seems to be your problem. Your editor has one set of requirements and you are operating under some other assumption. You haven’t indicated to me who/what you are writing for. If academic, then you may need to heed to the Chicago Manual of Style, Turabian, APA or MLA. If newspaper, magazine or newsletter, you may need to go with the AP Stylebook.
The easiest solution is to contact the editor and find out what she wants and then write according to those requirements. I have had clients who adhere to a certain style but then modify accordingly; this may be what your editor wants.
You should be able to obtain a copy of their style guidelines and work with that. In any case, before you write another article, save yourself time and grief to make certain that everyone is on the same page.
Q. My SU (StumbleUpon) traffic has been getting lower and lower over time, probably because I have the same set of people stumbling. How do you maintain healthy traffic levels from social media to all of your various sites? Do you have any SU or other social media tips that you’d be willing to share?
A. There are a number of things you can do to help your StumbleUpon traffic improve, though I cannot say for certain if you will reach the levels of traffic you are accustomed to.
That being said here are a few tips to keep in mind:
- Submit only on occasion to SU (once weekly, perhaps twice per domain), preferably having someone discover and stumble the article for you. Follow up with your own stumble if you like.
- Change the people whom you ask to stumble on your behalf. If SU catches you forming a “band” of stumblers, you’ll see diminishing returns.
- I don’t usually get that much traffic with Digg, Reddit and Mixx. SU rules!
- Comment on other blogs — good, relevant comments in order to get the owner’s approval. Place your article’s URL where the URL is featured after your name and email address.
- Spend some time stumbling daily. I like to click on my friends favorites and run through 50 to 100 at a time. When you stumble, people stumble back and the traffic begins to flow. Leave related comments from time to time; add discoveries too.
As always, good solid content will help drive people to your site, whether you plan to rely on social media traffic or not. When writing articles, don’t forget to cite other people’s work and embed a link back to their article.
I’ve been using StumbleUpon for two years now and have seen my traffic numbers fluctuate dramatically. I don’t rely on SU alone, but it does remain an important source for helping bring traffic my way.
Mailbag | Matthew C. Keegan, 16 Jun 10 | 
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