Social bookmarking sites are a tremendous way to drive torrents of traffic to a deserving blog. Or at least that’s been the theory. Out here in the perimeter of the blogosphere, we nature bloggers rarely experience the Digg effect or feel the Yahoo Buzz. Del.icio.us has never been all that tasty either. But StumbleUpon, I thought, was different. Due to the granular nature of StumbleUpon’s recommendation engine, this seemed like the one social bookmarking site that could really reward quality nature blogging.
For a while, my impression was accurate, at least as far as my own stats indicated. A virtuous cycle of Stumbling and being Stumbled made every day a potential deluge. All of a sudden, though, the river dried up.
This could very well be because I was remiss in doing unto other bloggers as I would have had them do unto me. It could even signal a drop in the quality of my work as well as that of my colleagues, though I’m seriously hoping that’s not the issue. The situation could simply be that the rise of Facebook and Twitter in our community has diminished social bookmarking use.
What I wonder is what YOUR experience of social bookmarking has been over the last year. Do you still use it? Do you still see any impact from sites like StumbleUpon on your traffic? Should I start writing more political and celebrity scandal posts?
Last but not least, how are we as a community going to promote the best of our collective work to the teeming masses of readers that don’t actually have their own blogs? What channel and strategy will serve nature blogs best?
Inquiring minds want to know!
19 Comments
I write my blog selfishly… for me… and I don’t pay attention to who reads it. I tried using some of the tips/tools recommended to drive traffic to the blog… but I never tracked whether it had any effect. That doesn’t mean I don’t check my stats now and again. I like to see what people are searching for when they find me. (Currant Jelly and Dragonfly Sex are my heavy hitters!) I see spikes in readership when I do a talk somewhere and mention my blog, or when friends like a post and spread the word to their friends.
I use Twitter and the Beta test Chirptracker to post links back to some pieces on the blog. Foe me that’s throwing the net wide and hoping that one or two will stay with it over time.
Regular good quality content is surely still the way although the occasional whiff of controversy never goes amiss.
I’ve been blogging for a while now and follow quite a few nature blogs using Google Reader. The limit to my social bookmarking is publicly sharing posts I like and just recently Google have added an ‘I Like’ button, exactly what that does I’m not sure.
I also keep up to date with Flickr contacts pictures using Google Reader, however with these I just favorite great shots rather mark in Google Reader itself.
As for traffic coming to my blog, it’s mostly from search engines and followers, I can’t say that I’ve ever noticed a hit from a social bookmarking site.
As far as a dropoff in the impact of StumbleUpon, Mike, I think you may simply be dealing with a ‘dilution’ factor; i.e. there are a lot more bookmarking sites out there now, picking out a lot more individual posts on any given day, than there were earlier on.
For now I think blog carnivals (and trying to use a variety of them) remains best way to promote one’s own site to new readers, but there may be better, more creative ways.
Mike, Apparantly I screwed up on the html anyway.
Wait a while and get the correct bitly links!
Gunnar
Twitter friendly I and the bird part 1. bit.ly/3GmN0D
Twitter friendly I and the bird part 2.
bit.ly/3Jvg5
Published first edition of Bird Bloggers Tweet club #001 http://bit.ly/EXRoR
I have no idea why my html did not work?
I still get about 20% of my traffic from StumbleUpon, but that’s on a much smaller base than 10,000 birds.
I don’t know the answer to your question, any more than I know the answer to how we get our collective voice heard politically. But I do know that the more we find others who share our interests and band together, the stronger voice we’ll have and the harder we will be to ignore.
So while there may not be immediate quantifiable payoffs, I’m convinced that we are improving our position for the long run.
Here is the post I had already posted with a bunch of links (and totally screwed up html) which awaits moderation. Best for Mike just to delete that one.
Good topic to raise Mike. I think it is a fact that mostly nature bloggers will read other nature blogs, so in theory reaching out to Social book marking services makes sense. But it is not enough. The blogs need to be Twittered and Facebooked as well if they are to attract readers that are not nature bloggers themselves with the exception of the top 3 in each category maybe.
As you know I have started a bird bloggers tweetclub which is currently running the first trial week. Results will be seen on Saturday.
I also put some Twitter promotion into the last issue of I and the bird #104, done in two parts.
It gave a welcome boost to many of the posts with over 100 extra hits in one case. I think the tweet club could well give lots of new readers this way.
I have commented earlier, that I think that while certainly many nature bloggers are mainly blogging for their own fun, and not caring about how many people actually read their stuff, I certainly feel that we nature bloggers as a community need to try to reach beyond the same community. It is a mission and a quest to convert the infidels (those indifferent to nature and the natural resources). So in the end, the more people we can get reading nature blogs, more souls saved and a happier and greener planet for all.
Therefor, keep on promoting each other blogs in any social media you can think of.
Twitter and Facebook in this respect and probably better than the Social bookmarking services (that should not be completely counted out), because our friends and followers are somewhat more prone to read anything that we recommend. But make sure you don’t only promote your own stuff. Share frequently the blogposts you read and you shall see that those bloggers will often return the “favor”.
I posted some links to check out above about actively tweeting other people’s blogs. The post that explains the idea of the tweet-club can be found here: http://bit.ly/HVd1X
Saludos
Gunnar
My blog has only been stumbled once, as far as I can remember, and while it did generate a fair amount of traffic, most of it didn’t stick. I find it a hard tool to use for self-promotion since the SU community seems to frown upon that. I also find it difficult to find and connect with other birders there. So for me it has never really worked all that well. I do use del.icio.us, but mainly for my own bookmarking purposes rather than promotion.
For promotion I mainly use Twitter, which has an active base of birders as users. When I started linking my posts from Twitter I noticed an immediate traffic boost from the service. That has leveled off a bit since then, but it still draws people in. With Twitter it’s important to be active in conversations other than self-promotion and to return the favor to other users. But then that is true of most social media.
Hi Mike - here’s my 2 cents. I don’t use any social bookmarking or networking sites. I simply don’t have the time! One small exception - I recently signed up for Facebook so that I could support a cause I care very much about. (International Bird Rescue Research Center ~ Dawn promotion)
I don’t get much traffic, so i don’t know how useful this info is. I will say that I have had more than a few visitors whom I’ve met on the trail while I’m taking pictures. Students working on a project, families, other birders. I’ve sent pictures to college kids for their papers, and given cards to families so that they can see pictures of some of our shared sights from the day. I have provided photos to a Camp Fire organization and a tallgrass prairie preserve - both of which have brought visitors.
I also promote conservation causes and offer my blog as a platform to whatever small audience I can offer.
I guess I DO use social networking - the old fashioned kind!
I should do more stumbling-upon. Just recently, a totally bogus post in which I just reposted something funny from somewhere else went way up in stumbleupon and I got thousands of hits.
Which, of course, makes me totally lose faith in the Internet.
I’m not as good as I would like to be at Stumbling and (now) retweeting. Maybe if I were more convinced of its utility, as far as increasing traffic goes, I might be more conscientious.
I do make a point of linking to relevant blogs in my own blog posts.
I have had a few spikes in traffic after a post of mine was Stumbled. A few, and quickly flattened out. Mostly, I see a visitor from there once or twice a week.
I just barely got started on Twitter, so I don’t know what effect it will have. I get an occasional visitor via Facebook, and blog carnivals bring in a few, but most of my traffic comes from searches.
I Follow quite a few blogs, and have a few Followers, myself. I don’t know if this makes any difference; mostly, I read blogs in Google Reader, which doesn’t show up on their Sitemeter. It’s only when I go on over to the blog itself, in the case of a truncated post, or wanting to read or make a comment, that my Following would have any effect. I assume the same goes for my Followers.
(I wonder about that “Like this” button on Google Reader; does it register with the blog, or only on Google?)
Where I do see a measurable effect is in the reaction to comments I make on other blogs and forums. Since these are usually on topics other than my own blog’s,* I doubt that many of these visitors come back. I could be wrong.
*I am a regular (twice daily) reader and occasional commenter of ScienceBlogs.com, and a member of a forum that includes several of the ScienceBloggers. And I follow a few political blogs, and independent science bloggers.
I confess that I do watch my Sitemeter closely. I am immoderately pleased with spikes, and equally immoderately disappointed when the inevitable crash comes. I like being read! But I derive more solid satisfaction from the comments on my posts: this is what it’s about, not numbers, but dialogue, sharing, new friends and old.
I never got into StumbleUpon, I’m not sure why. Possibly because I do most of my blog reading through a feed reader, so stumbling something requires a couple of extra clicks, and given that I follow a few dozen blogs (wish I had the time for more), that really adds up.
I’ve had a couple of regular readers submit my posts to StumbleUpon, and I get the occasional bit of traffic from it, but never very much - with one exception. One day a post (about goldfinches, incidentally) was submitted to the “unknown” category. I got over 900 hits from that one stumble. I suspect that vast majority of those stumblers didn’t return, because within a couple of days my traffic was back to normal levels. It was exciting to see that spike in visits, but it didn’t seem to me like I derived a lot of long-term benefit from it.
I’ve found that maybe 75% of my traffic comes from Google searches. People looking for info on milk snakes, giant water bugs, grapevine beetles, snapping turtle eggs, and house centipedes probably constitute a quarter of the visits I get each day. A lot of new followers arrive by this route. Even above blog carnivals, leaving comments elsewhere, the NBN membership, or anything else proactive that I’ve done, the most successful traffic-generator I’ve tried has simply been writing good, informative posts about subjects people want to know more about.
About 80% of my traffic is from Google image searches, mostly photos of insects,spiders, and birds, plus the occasional flurry of artist searches. Another 10%, more or less, comes from direct searches. A typical one would be today’s, “There was a giant hairy bug in my yard.” (I don’t know whether the post they found was helpful; depends where they live, probably.) And there’s always a search for carpet beetles.
I use Facebook and Twitter to promote new blog posts on our Neighborhood Nature blog, and that inspires a dozen or so visitors. The biggest traffic boost we get, however, is if the boys and I see a rare bird, post its photo on the blog, then inform birders about the link on the relevant state’s e-mail list. That gives us a big spike that tapers off the next day.
However, day in and day out, like Seabrooke and Susannah, most of my traffic comes through search engines. My blog posts start appearing in Google search results within about an hour after publication, sometimes with a rank of 20th to 50th depending on the competition for the specific search term. However, once my regulars start visiting the post, Google smiles on me, and the new post will quickly shoot up in the rankings, often reaching the top 10 within a day or so. One thing I’ve noticed is that, when the title of my post includes a specific, interesting, but not too common search term, like “are robins a sign of spring?” or “we found a baby robin,” the ranking for searches using that term can often hit the top 5 and then stay there for months (and in the cases of older blogs, for years). It doesn’t seem to work as well if I just include the one-word name of an animal, like “wood duck” or “water scorpion.”
Nature blogs seem to be one of the few sources of new natural history Web content these days, at least for the relatively obscure topics that I write about. That makes me wonder about what my real responsibility is here. Of course, I try to write timely (especially seasonal) material for the folks who will read my posts in the days immediately after I write them. But now I also try to think about the folks who visit my blog posts months later (or a year later for the really seasonal stuff) as they try to answer a specific question or research a specific topic.
One of my guiding principles comes from something Mike Spock says about museum exhibits: “Never dead end a visitor.” So, I try to embed at least a few links to specific, relevant Web content within my posts, plus I almost always include a list of what I consider to be good and reliable resources at the end of the post. Sometimes those are blogs, usually not.
These search-engine visitors rarely become regular readers, but at least I’ve helped them follow up on their interest, however fleeting it may be.
To get back on topic: I installed Stumble on my tool bar, but I rarely remember to use it. Only a few folks have Stumbled on my blog so far.
Ok ..here is my two cents worth..
I think there will always be blogs that will draw allot of traffic..those filled with information, scientific or otherwise.
For me..I found that its all about community. Reading other blogs commenting..forming friendships.
I am sure I am not alone when I say we all love comments. I also love to give a comments, however short it might be, to let the blogger know that I appreciate their effort, time etc put into their post. I have to say..that I tend not to do this if bloggers dont comment back after a time..I continue to read their blog but I assume they just dont comment or care about comments.
I know there are those out there who read thru readers etc and don’t comment.. Commenting takes time, I can appreciate that..it doesn’t work for everyone.
But I can say..if you comment, your are forming more of a community out there..appreciating one anothers art and giving thanks for it.
We are all out here expressing ourselves in one way or another..Say hi..comment..one word..Hi..we cant know everyone out there..but connect with those that you resonate with.
Betcha that person reading your comment will feel connected somehow.to u .and wanta know more about You!
Might like your blog..might pass it on.
You will be read!
That being said..I recently started using Twitter and Facebook to promote my blog..it brings in some hits..but not nearly as many as with those of friendships.
So take that for what its worth..2 cents..
I am not a Nature blogger full of knowledge..just one out here discovering,Nature, blogging and community.
I’ve used SU quite a bit, but since those handy Twitter buttons, I’m more a Twitter girl.
Or nothing at all.
I rather go and check what I find via my bloggy friends.
The quality is usually better than most things I find via SU and Tweets.
I think the good old “mouth to mouth” is still best for quality traffic
I’ll back up what Dawn says above about commenting - I’d say most of my regular visitors come from me going out and discovering nature blogs that I am interested in and just leaving a comment. I think the main thing about doing that though, is that you have to be sincere, if you really enjoy a blog and let the writer know it then you will probably gain a reader back but not if they suspect you are just trying to get your own name out there.
I’ve been stumbled once or twice and sometimes it will bring in a huge amount of new visitors, but I rarely find that they stick. I think stumbling kind of feeds into ADHD - you know, people look for 30 seconds, say “thats cooool!” and are out of there. Personally I’ll only ever stumble something if I really love it, I know that people like a bit of back scratching on stumbleupon but I don’t feel like stumbling is the place to do it.
On the other hand Twitter is great for promoting your friends, re tweeting is fast and simple, also tweeting to publicise a new blog post is a good way to reach those who don’t use a feed reader. I don’t have a huge following on Twitter but I do find I get a good number of hits from there.
I don’t get huge amounts of StumbleUpon traffic to my blog, but I do get periodic significant traffic spikes from SU to one or two photos on my main site (usually the same one each time!). I’ve tended not to pursue this though because as far as I can see very little of this traffic goes on to become regular, or even to investigate any of the rest of the site.
For a while I had stumble upon voting links on my site to allow stumblers to add their votes, but they don’t even seem to do that.
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