pro·ac·tive: anticipating change and taking action, rather than reacting to events
The Proactive Report is about the shifts in the media landscape, social media strategy and online PR Our aim is to bring you the latest research and case studies that show how technology is changing media consumption and the patterns of communication and behavior online.
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StumbleUpon and Digital PR
The latest stats from StatCounter show that StumbleUpon’s recent jump to the top spot for referring social media traffic in the US was not a blip. In July when they passed Facebook they hit 43% with Facebook coming in at 38%. Now, a scant month later, Stumble has edged up to 50% while Facebook gained just 1% to finish at 39%.
This is only in the US – globally Facebook still trumps all other sites by a large margin
If you are practicing PR in the US, and you’re including social media to extend the reach of your news content, you should be engaging the 15 million loyal SU users in the US and nurturing those relationships.
Here’s how:
- If you have not yet done so, create an account and set up a profile
- Link to your SU profile in your About page or in your press contact listing
- Add the StumbleUpon button to all your news pages (instructions here )
- Start to build your network on SU, just as you do in any other social site
- Get to know the members of the community
- See who Stumbles the kind of content you have in your news releases, articles and videos
- Stumble their content – it is not considered good form to Stumble your own content
- Use the SU ads feature to promote your release headlines – it costs just 5c per impression and more than 60 000 brands have already used this paid discovery option
- SU recently added a search feature to their site so it is more important than ever to have your news content indexed there
What makes this search function different is users are searching by interest, introducing thousands of new interests and millions of new websites.
As with any other social site StumbleUpon is not a quick fix. There is no one-shot way to tap into this traffic. You have to do the work and become a genuine member of the community. But at least you are investing time in the #1 social referrer.
If you have not used Stumble Upon before it will obviously not show up as a referrer to your website. Give it try – wouldn’t you rather spend time on a site that has the potential to send you 50% of your social traffic?
Caveat: do not drop out any currently successful actions. Keep doing what you are doing and add Stumble Upon to the mix.
Online PR
Building A Simple Social Media Dashboard with iGoogle
January 21st, 2012 | Read | Discuss
When you start monitoring social conversations it takes a while to figure out which words and phrases return the most relevant content. There are many excellent subscription tools available, but until you have narrowed down your search terms and brand terms, it’s a smart idea to use a free tool. iGoogle is one easy-to-create and [...]
Research
Social Media and Marketing Insights 2011
November 13th, 2011 | Read | Discuss
Booz & Co and Buddy Media’s recent study on the state of social media and marketing offer some interesting insights into what companies are doing now – and where they plan to invest in the future. For instance: Social media is primarily the domain of marketing. Less than half (48%) of companies have PR leading [...]
Social Media Case Studies
Social Media Trends 2012 – Analytics and Measurement
December 5th, 2011 | Read | Discuss
Today I am going back to the four social media trends Beverly Macy predicted would be hot in 2012 in the Huffington Post The rise of Social Intelligence Better use of analytics and more focus on measurement Content creation and curation Social media education and training Social Media Intelligence is a sure bet in my [...]
Social Media Marketing Tips
Google+ Reviews, Tips and Shortcuts
July 10th, 2011 | Read | Discuss
Oh No! Not another social network ! I can just hear the cries in the PR world: ” We already have too many channels to manage, why should we have to start over on a new platform?” When I first heard the rumor of Circles back in December 2010 I was excited because I thought [...]
Social Media Strategy
Social Media Trends 2012 – Content Curation in PR
December 16th, 2011 | Read | Discuss
In her post about social media trends in 2012 Beverly Macy says content curation is important because people want to know what’s important and they want to discover interesting and relevant content. “Competitive advantage goes to companies who quickly figure out how to enable effective aggregation curation. Look for rapid innovation in this field.” There [...]
Video Interviews
Why Quality Content is Important
February 19th, 2011 | Read | Discuss
This week the New York Times broke the story about how JCPenney nabbed the #1 spot in Google for a slew of search terms. For months – right through the holiday season – they were top of the rankings for phrases like “skinny jeans”, “home decor” and “comforter sets”, to name just a few. Google [...]
