Twitter, StumbleUpon Rank 1-2 In My Book

The verdict is in: Twitter and StumbleUpon (SU) rank as the two most important sites in my social media arsenal, easily outdistancing all other methods combined. Okay, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration especially given Twitter’s propensity to slow down in the middle of the day, but I can say that I’m more active with Twitter than I am with SU which says a lot given my lengthy and consistent activity with the latter.

Winning With Twitter

Twittering (or should I say tweeting) is an interesting activity, especially if you like to write compelling, pithy headlines and include a URL with what you have to say. That can give an important edge to the professional writer who is used to coming up with killer headlines, but I don’t see Twitter being all that limiting for anyone other than the overt spammer.

It seems to me that all you have to do is share something of semi-value with your followers and, if your devotees are so inclined, they’ll retweet your tweets again and again. Of course, your pool of followers has to be rabidly interested in you and/or your topic, but “pitiful” me with scarcely 400 followers has seen a nice return on just one or two retweets as well.

Winning With StumbleUpon

SU remains a burly beast, an animal that attracts many other social media pros whose names are familiar to you.  Lyndon Antcliff, Chris Garrett, Tim Nash and Shana Albert are just a handful of active people on SU, individuals I long ago “friended” and still share stumbles with. However, to even things out a bit, I’m much more likely of late to visit the “What’s New” tab and find the latest finds, pull those up and leave a stumble.

A key point: I almost always leave a comment as a comment/stumble is better than leaving a stumble alone.  Please consider doing the same for the pages you choose to stumble…it’ll slow down your stumbling, but you’ll build up a reputation for being someone who leaves thoughtful and related comments behind. Trust me on this one, please.

The Rest of the Pack

I’m no longer active with Digg and I’m very careful with Reddit. Both sites seem to have been over run by a cohort of far-left wing devotees which is okay for them, but not so for everyone else.  If you post anything that even hints of opposition to the Digg or Reddit mindset you can expect your work to be buried in no time. They also turn on their own — I’ve read quite a few accounts where even the most ardent digger has been kicked to the curb by fellow diggers or by Digg itself.

Just the other day I had to plead with Reddit to restore my account — seems that my new ‘autotrends’ category offended someone. Gee, what’s so offensive about discussing the auto industry and new cars? Reddit did restore my account, but I’m expecting to be attacked again so I’ll keep my work focused on Twitter and StumbleUpon. That’s right, I quit!

Staying Laser Focused With Social Media

Of course there is a downside to social media and that drawback is spending too much time on it instead of doing actual work that makes money for yourself. Yes, I do tabbed browsing which means I’ll complete some work and then head over to Twitter and SU to see what’s up. I give myself a set amount of time to tweet or stumble, then its back to what I was doing.

Am I always so disciplined? No, but I avoid doing consecutive hours of socializing and with warmer weather here I’m much more inclined to log off, push in my chair and head outside for some refreshing exercise.

Thankfully, I don’t have a Blackberry or iPhone yet, otherwise I might be tempted to take my social media habit with me!

Related Reading: Amusing Myself With Twitter

Friday Quick Takes

I’m going to wrap up the blogging week with an assortment of information, news, and general items to share with my readers. In sifting through my bookmarks, downloads, and assorted files I have located some “stuff” that may be of interest to you.

• Yesterday, I downloaded and used for the first time CC PDF Converter, a program that does some of what pricey Adobe Acrobat does — changes almost any file over to the *pdf format. I am satisfied with all that this freeware product is able to do.

• Freelance writers will want to read Kathryn Lay”s, How To Build Your Clip File, to get some helpful tips on how to accumulate the clips you need to find the work that you want. Speaking about articles, Ubertramp’s 7 Tips for Studying a Magazine Market, also offers useful tips.

• Initially, I had reservations about mentioning the Authority Blogger forum as I don’t want to spoil what looks to be a good thing. The forum was developed by Chris Garrett whose tag line for the site is, “strategic blogging for business and professionals.” My friend Bobbie Sullivan, who is a research psychologist and the owner of Aircrew Health, recommended the forum to me and offered her assurance that the site has a much more professional tone than the many “noisy” forums dominating the internet these days.

• SEO or search engine optimization will probably always be an important thing for me as long as I have a presence on the web. The rules always seem to be changing as Google and gang adjust their algorithms and webbies do their best to dominate the SERPs. Forget PageRank — this tool is probably changing again given the late release of the most recent updated.

• I get a chuckle from reading what some people try to pass as SEO advice. No, I won’t go mentioning some of the worst of the lot, but I find much of what passes as SEO is inaccurate, some is even rubbish. What does intrigue me are contextual backlinks, something I am just now beginning to get my mind around. If you have an opinion about this sort of thing, please share.

Have a relaxing weekend.