Earlier this year we broke down why B2B marketers should use StumbleUpon and how they can do it. Now the social media bookmarking site has launched a new blogging program called Stumble Bloggers where they encourage writers to submit content to the platform.
Each month StumbleUpon selects two themes, and bloggers are encouraged to submit content on those topics. The debut themes for the December launch were the holidays and teach me something awesome where people were prompted to offer content on all kinds of things from recipes to productivity hacks.
“This entire initiative was based around unearthing the best content from the blogger community,” says Eric Sedransk, partnership strategist at StumbleUpon. “We figure if we can crowdsource this we can give our users a list of relevant, interesting, and seasonal content that they can stumble. In the process of that, we can shout out and promote their content through our channels.”
The team at StumbleUpon was surprised at how enthusiastic the response was to the new program. They had no trouble finding writers to participate. So far, more than 1300 bloggers have signed up to become approved Stumble Bloggers and more are signing up every day.
“Our outreach program was entirely organic,” says Sedransk. “We chose a few key influential bloggers, reached out to them individually, and then did a few Facebook and Twitter posts on our end.We were watching Twitter explode around us mentioning the program, and it took on a life of its own.”
How is this relevant to B2B bloggers? They have not delved too deeply into the B2B space yet, but they plan to get into it next year.
Andrew Levine, StumbleUpon’s head of partnerships and communications, feels confident the Blogger program will progress at a nice clip. He says, “We’re just getting started and we’re really planning to grow the program across every major interest area on StumbleUpon. I really love stumbling the business categories because you find a lot of tips and tricks and things that make you better in your business or more efficient. It’s one of our strong categories, and a category that any marketer can learn from.”
Efficiency hacks and other tricks to improve your business are exactly the type of content that B2B marketers might be interested in, so Stumble Bloggers might turn into an important resource as users add more content. This month’s theme “Teach me something awesome” is already turning up some tips and tricks that prove valuable to any business.
“Marketing, and specifically B2B marketing, could be a topic where blogger and participant get recognition through StumbleUpon,” says Levine. “We’ll encourage bloggers to stumble the official list, create their own lists, and identify new sites and resources.”
The Stumble Bloggers initiative was launched with the help of several partners. Blog Meets Brand played a major role in rolling out the program, and StumbleUpon also works with a social media amplification program called Thunderclap to help increase exposure. They continue to work closely with the blogger network as well, and hope to find new partnerships in the future.
“All of our partners on the project are really great partners, and we’re planning to work with them all in the future,” says Sedransk. “Because we are just getting started there is going to be a tremendous number of partnership opportunities for Stumble Blogger in 2015 for a diverse range of partners.”
As the program rolls forward, the StumbleUpon team will continually test and refine the Stumble Blogger program to make it stronger for all parties involved. If all goes well, January 2015 should bring the second iteration of the program.
If there’s ever been a good time to start stumbling, it’s right now.
Photo of Eric Sedransk via StumbleUpon
