When I started blogging last September, I looked at traffic stats on a daily basis. I was probably a little too obsessed. Perhaps it took away from my enjoyment of blogging. Fast forward to today and I check traffic stats maybe every 2 weeks, just out of curiousity. Today, I took a look at the traffic stats and was once again blown away by traffic generated from Stumbled Upon. I wanted to talk a bit about a few social networking sites I’ve used and touch on the sites I’ve found success with and those that haven’t worked for me. I’ve used Stumbled Upon, Digg, Reddit, Twitter, Mixx and many other social networking site, but in my experience, Stumbled Upon has slaughtered the competition.
First let me explain my current social network involvement. Stumbled Upon is used by most from the Stumbled Upon toolbar. Submit content and the more people who see it and give it a thumbs up, the more your content appears when users click “Stumble” on the toolbar to find great stuff. I engaged in Stumbled Upon a little each day from September to January. I didn’t spend a significant amount of time attempting to grow my network. After January, my Stumbled Upon involvement has zeroed out as my schedule has taken me away from social networking. My thoughts; Stumbled Upon really takes no effort and the traffic it can generate is amazing.
Digg is a site used to submit content, with users engaging by giving it a Digg if they like it or Bury it if they don’t. The more Diggs it gets, especially in short periods of time, the quicker it moves up the charts. If you can succeed front page success with content, it’s probably like hitting a traffic lottery. I never achieved this success. From 
September to December, I spent countless hours engaging in the Digg community and still have some good relationships with a few members I connected with. There are some great people on Digg, but with all the work I put in, the results were quite disappointing. Today with my current schedule, I can’t recall the last time I visited Digg. My thoughts; Digg is fun to use and an awesome site to find cool stories and stuff, but as generating traffic, the hard work never panned out for me. Mixx and Reddit is very similar to Digg, but I’ve never really fully engaged in either site.
Delicious is a bookmarking site that lets users add their favorite sites to delicious. Members can view all the other bookmarks shared from other Delicious bookmarks. Content that has large numbers of saves typically generates buzz. Delicious is one of my favorite sites. I actually use it quite often. It takes no time or effort and bookmarks take priority over any type of networking. I’ve used Delicious on a regular basis, but only to search for more bookmarks. What I like about Delicious is that it takes no time or effort and it’s always cool to see others bookmark your content. My thoughts; Little effort, an amazing collection of cool bookmarks, and a keeper for me. Love it.
We all know what Facebook is. You can integrate your blog with Facebook to automatically have new content posted to Facebook as you publish it. I enjoy Facebook and use it a bit about every other day. Not much effort is put into Facebook, but it’s very rewarding to have friends and family take the time to read my content when they see something that catches their eye. My thoughts; Automatically adding new posts to Facebook is effortless and friends and family view what interests them. This is only a small part of what I use Facebook for, but it does generate some quality traffic.
Twitter is quite the buzz. With Twitter, breaking news is often posted on Twitter before any major news outlets or sites can post it. It’s great to share articles to those who follow you and just to give one liners. The power of Twitter can be in the Retweets. If someone likes what you posted, they may Retweet it out to their network of followers. The more people who Retweet, the more eyes are on your Tweets. I do love Twitter, but as far as traffic goes, it’s a big dud for me. I use Twitter daily for approximately 20-30 minutes. I enjoy Twitter, so I’ll continue to use it for other reasons, b
ut for generating traffic, it’s done little to nothing for my site.
Overall Traffic (Since Sep 08)
Stumbled Upon = 58.8% of all traffic, 296,000 visits
Digg = .69% of all traffic, with 3,500 visits
Delicious = .34% of all traffic, with 1700 visits
Others: Facebook = 1038 visits, Reddit = 907, Twitter = 327, Mixx = 154
July Traffic
Stumbled Upon = 4,536 visits
Digg = 91 visits
Delicious = 48 visits
Others: Facebook 47 visits, Bookmark Surfer = 33 visits, Twitter = 14
Today’s Traffic
Stumbled Upon = 6,000 visits
Facebook = 2 visits
Digg = 1 visit
As you can see from the breakdown above, Stumbled Upon has been very consistent for me throughout. Though I don’t use Stumbled Upon anymore, readers who find content interesting continue to submit to their social networks. With Stumbled Upon, certain content really seems to stick and can blow up without notice. No other social networking site has been as successful. Of course, this is my experience and I know others may differ.
After seeing the traffic explosion today, I wanted to share my experience and thoughts. Stumbled Upon continues to amaze me. I also want to give a big thanks to those who have submitted my articles.
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