How to Market Your Book with StumbleUpon Pt. 2
In the first post of this two-part article on How to Market Your Book with StumbleUpon, we discussed what StumbleUpon is and how it can bring lots of fairly targeted visitors to your site if the right people Stumble it and give it a thumbs up. If these visitors are impressed with what they see, some of these people may go on to buy your book. Since this is a form of marketing that costs you nothing, you can’t really lose (and you might win big).
How do you get people to like your site and give it a thumbs up though?
That’s the key question.
If you’ve made a StumbleUpon account before just to Stumble your book promotion page, you know you didn’t get any real traffic that way.
That’s because you were a nobody in the StumbleUpon network. No friends, nobody viewing your StumbleUpon home page, nobody reviewing you…. Hey, don’t take it personally, we all start there.
You either need to build up a network of StumbleUpon friends (and do some Stumbling yourself), or you need to find somebody who has already done that.
Think of StumbleUpon like highschool. For something to catch on, it needs to be adopted by one of the popular kids. It also needs a “cool” factor in and of itself.
The first half of the equation is relatively easy. Join StumbleUpon, join some communities related to your niche, and “friend” some of the most active Stumblers who are also interested in your niche. Leave positive reviews on their Stumble user pages to attract their notice. Also make sure you’re Stumbling some cool pages in your niche (don’t do yours yet) that others will find of value. When it’s time to promote your page, you can send the link to your new friends and ask them to check it out.
But before you do that, there’s something you need to do with your website.
Remember the second half of the equation above? Cool factor!
On the Internet, “cool” can just mean buzzworthy. If a site has some great value or is humorous or inspiring to a lot of people, it’s buzzworthy. People love pointing out great finds to their friends, so they will naturally want to share such a site with others.
If you’ve come across the term viral marketing, this is what it’s talking about. Something is so cool/valuable that everyone wants to tell everyone else about it. (If you can get your site into this category, you’ll get links and visitors from lots of sources, far beyond just StumbleUpon.)
Note that I’m talking about sites here and not books. Your book may be a great resource, but if people have to buy it to read it, they’re probably not going to Stumble your book’s promo page. Not unless you’re JK Rowling anyway.
That doesn’t mean you can’t use StumbleUpon to sell your book, so stick with me.
Now, chances are the front of your author site isn’t extraordinarily cool. It’s a business page, after all, right? It probably has some information on you, your book, and a link where visitors can buy it online.
This isn’t the kind of page people thumbs up on Stumbleupon.
Does that mean you need to redesign your whole website? Of course not. It just means your home page probably isn’t going to be the page you want to get Stumbled.
Instead, think of a new page you can create on your website or blog. If you’re a non-fiction author, this page will probably give out valuable information on the same topic you cover in your book.
Lists are popular, since they’re easy to read quickly (time is everything on the Internet). You could also try putting a negative spin on your article or list. For some reason we’re drawn to those negative headlines (I’ve seen them attract a lot of attention on social bookmarking sites).
For example, if your book is on dieting, you could write a list with a title such as “10 Reasons You’re Getting Fatter Everyday.” That’s a little more provocative than “10 Diet Tips” and even if it’s the same sort of content in the actual article, the difference in the approach can rocket your page from ho-hum into “cool.” And remember, cool pages get thumbs up Stumbles.
So, what if you’re a fiction author?
You could also write an informative article based on your experience (10 Reasons Why Your Agent Rejected You, How to Self-Publish Your Mystery Novel, etc.), you could post a short story, or really you could write anything creative that gives people a hint of what they’ll get when they buy your book.
I recently Stumbled across a short science-fiction story that I enjoyed and gave a thumbs up to: Terry Bisson’s They’re Made out of Meat (this isn’t the version I originally Stumbled, but I remembered enough of the story to find it again on Google so I could mention it here).
Don’t feel you have to be limited by text either. Videos are hot on the Internet right now (there’s even a specific Video section of StumbleUpon for those who want to Stumble videos), and they can bring a lot of traffic. If you have a camera and a knack for performing, give it a try.
Whatever approach you take, make sure your “cool” contains a prominent link back to your book promotion page. Once you create a fan of a random visitor, you’ll want them to be able to find out how to buy your book.
Remember, the whole idea here is to use StumbleUpon to sell more books!
How to Market Your Book with StumbleUpon Pt. 1
This is the first post of a two-part article on how to use StumbleUpon to market your book. In the first part, I’m going to talk about what StumbleUpon is and how it can drive visitors to your site. In the second part, I’ll talk about how to get people to “Stumble” your site naturally and how to convert visitors into book buyers (yeah, you knew there was a reason you were reading this article).
First off, StumbleUpon is one of the social bookmarking sites that has really taken off this past year. Members click a “Stumble” button and are delivered to sites in the StumbleUpon database, and if a visitor gives a thumbs up to a new site, it’s then entered into the collection for other users to stumble upon (hence the name, eh?).
Stumblers can Stumble (this is turning into a tongue twister) by category. For example, if they choose Science Fiction, they’ll land on random sites that other folks have Stumbled and labeled as SciFi.
You may be getting an inkling of how this can work to bring visitors to your site. If someone Stumbles you, your site will enter into the StumbleUpon collection, and in the future, others will Stumble across it.
Let’s break down how the program works from the user side and from the marketer side (AKA the person who is hoping to get free traffic from StumbleUpon).
How StumbleUpon Works from the User Perspective:
- You visit StumbleUpon and create an account.
- You download the toolbar, which then appears at the top of your browser for easy access.
- You set up your preferences, i.e. choose the categories of pages you’re interested in seeing when you click “Stumble.”
- You can rate the site you’re dropped off at with a thumbs up or thumbs down or even review the site.
- You can join groups with similar interests, Stumble other Stumblers, add friends, etc. etc. The more people who review you, friend you, and thumbs up your home page, the more people that will be paying attention to what you’re Stumbling. Friends may even send you links to cool pages to check out (and you can do the same for them).
How StumbleUpon Works (the Ideal Scenario) to Send Visitors Your Site
- A StumbleUpon user visits your site and gives it a thumbs up, a review, and tags it with the appropriate category labels (the right label is key, as this will bring you targeted Stumblers, people actively seeking sites in your niche).
- That Stumbler is popular and has many friends watching what he/she Stumbles, so they also visit your site.
- Many of them like what they see and give your site a thumbs up.
- Since more people are thumbing up, reviewing, etc., your site will become more highly ranked in the StumbleUpon database, so more people will land on it when they choose to Stumble. (If just one person without many contacts Stumbles your site, you’ll probably only get a few visitors, but if a big dog Stumbles it and lots of others follow suit, you can get hundreds or even thousands of free visitors a month in perpetuity).
That should give you an idea how StumbleUpon works. If anything is murky here, you can also read the company’s official explanation on How StumbleUpon Works. Of course, the best way to get a feel for the program is by signing up yourself.
In the next post, I’m going to cover how you as an author looking to promote your book can specifically use this tool to your advantage. In the meantime, you may want to check out the following posts on other people’s blogs:
5 Tactics For Driving Traffic From StumbleUpon
How to Increase StumbleUpon Traffic
Go on to How to Market Your Book with StumbleUpon Pt. 2