A couple of weeks ago, I listed 23 types of social media sites and mentioned that StumbleUpon defied definition. It’s not your typical social bookmarking site. StumbleUpon is a unique site that is part social-networking community and part personalized recommendation engine and allows users to “channel surf” the web. “Stumblers” set preferences to discover online content, and then give returned sites a thumbs up or thumbs down, which tightens one’s personal search parameters.

The more you stumble and vote, the more attuned to your likes and dislikes StumbleUpon will become. And the same goes for your target audience. This means that StumbleUpon actually delivers niche-targeted traffic to your site. And, that traffic isn’t just niche-targeted, these visitors are actively seeking certain content topics. Pretty cool.

Besides being a great place to discover great content and market your own stuff, StumbleUpon is fun. Here’s how it works:

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When my dad was a young boy, he was at church with his mother listening to a sermon about the land of milk and honey and he blurted out, “Eat your spinach!” He could’ve been a poster child for the public health initiative, 5-a-Day.

Although we know we’re supposed to eat our fruits & vegetables, (yes, even our spinach), I’m talking about blog promos. Yes, five. The concept comes from book marketing guru John Kremer. In his 1001 Ways to Market Your Book, he tells authors to pitch your book at least five times a day — every day. And that’s the key, consistency.

That’s a pretty simple promotion plan. How effective is it? So far, so good. Continue reading →