Technology Toolbox – Social Media and Stumbleupon

Digital Studio for Public HumanitiesThe University of Iowa

dsph@uiowa.edu @uidsphApril 4, 2013

The Summary…at the Start

Social Media are tools, not solutions

An effective plan and organized solution will always present greater worth than just seeing what’s out there

Prompt your user

Best practices Social media works best with one idea across several

platforms Platform = communication medium/website

Ex. Twitter is a platform Each platform should offer something different

Be willing to experiment, and be willing to try new things

What is Social Media?

Social Media is a reference to a relatively new formation of popular, interactive sites where people share information with others Includes different types of information Also includes public profiles

Clear list of connections Example: “Like” DSPH on Facebook Hyperlinks (friends, groups, images) are the key

Why should I/we use social media?

Great marketing tools Leverage/extend your message Amplify your content; make it more exciting

Easy to use Can be done in 15 minutes per day if you are smart about it Can integrate into e-mails

It’s where your students are going

Most 15-24 year-olds only use social media to communicate

They hate using e-mails and won’t keep track of them

People will tell their friends about DSPH, and they’ll do it for free…

But only if the product is good and full of quality content

The Key to Social Media is Content It’s about great content – quality blogs, photos

and videos If you make it, they will share it Break your content into multiple platforms

Tweet about your blog, send Facebook updates about program deadlines

Easier to break down manageable chunks of great content than scraping good things from bad content

The Keys to Social Media

Reward different skills Writing, photos, videos Provide incentives to students to cater to their

strengths

Break SM users into different teams Writing group – blogging, Tweeting, linking Photo group – Instagram, iPhone, digital photos Video group – iPhone, MailVU, webcam, iMovie

If you have students select what they want to do, they’ll find ways of competing against each other Competition produces the best results

Types of Social Media

Facebook 800 million users (November 2011) 73% of all adult SNS users across the Internet use

Facebook

Twitter – 200 million users (2011)

YouTube Received 50% more views than in 2010 Threatens traditional advertising and marketing

Tumblr – 90 million unique monthly visitors

StumbleUpon drives 50% of all social network traffic.

StumbleUpon

A social media bookmarking site that allows users to “like” websites and add them to their profile.

These websites are then shared with their friends through their profile

“Stumble” button – added to a user’s browser toolbar when they sign up

Sends a user to a random website, usually one previously liked by a friend

StumbleUpon boasts more than 30 million users

Each user fills out a survey of their interests

Notes About StumbleUpon

After 24 hours a popular shared link will typically get zero more “retweets” on Twitter, 5% more likes on Facebook but will get 83% more “stumbles”

The half life of a link (the point in time when a link has garnered half of the engagement it will ever get) is 2.8 hours when shared on Twitter, 3.2 hours when shared on Facebook but a page shared on StumbleUpon has a half life of 400 hours.

The average Stumble page view lasts 72 seconds which is 25 percent longer than the average web page view at 58 seconds

So How Do I Use It?

Let’s Get Started!

Install the Toolbar

Connect Around Interests

Install the Stumble Button

Use su.pr

Participate!

Active users of StumbleUpon receive greater traffic than others Receiving high ratings from other users increases

likelihood of “stumbling” by others Don’t just create a profile, submit your site and walk

away. No increase in views Use it to peruse interests and news

StumbleUpon has a very specific policy against using their service for promotional purposes

Useful Links for StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon New User Guide

StumbleUpon User Statistics

Jeff Bullas - How to Use StumbleUpon for Business

The Lifecycle of a Web Page on StumbleUpon

5 Step Approach to Using StumbleUpon to Increase Traffic