All copyrights reserved 2008 DailySEOblog.com About Mani Karthik | SEO for Wordpress | SEO Consultation | Search Engine Optimisation Tips | Privacy policy |
If you are on Stumbleupon, there’s no chance that you missed Babychen Mathew a.k.a Dancewithshadows. He is the only Indian to reach the top stumblers list yet. He’s from Delhi, and lives a life completely online. Dancewithshadows.com is his website.
I managed to catch up with him on chat to interview finding out his experience with stumbleupon, tips and tricks he’d like to share with us and help in ensuring a better stumbling experience.
We discussed everything from starting off, building your community on SU, finding good friends, sharing and reviewing, the goods and bads of stumbling, the do’s and dont’s, and some SU secrets from Babychen’s experience. Hope you will like it.
Mani Karthik: So you are the only top stumbler from India as of now. How do you feel?
Babychen Mathew: Hmm, good, of course. I never thought about it that way till I got your message!
Babychen Mathew: I keep trying to find other Indians and make friends with them though all the time!
Mani Karthik: So how did you start with stumbleupon and other social media?
Babychen Mathew: I started with digg, and while trying to learn about digg, heard about SU for the first time. Generally i hate all toolbars, so stayed away for a while. When I finally tried it out, I was interested in the promise of SU that it will throw up sites which you like. Seemed to work better as I used it more, so kept using it and trying to learn a bit every day. I liked the fact that SU is not obsessed about politics, and not as negative as Digg is!
Mani Karthik: I agree. So where do you like better now. SU or Digg?
Mani Karthik: And when did you start with SU?
Babychen Mathew: for breaking news, I prefer digg anyday. Or for top ten lists. Digg seems to be obsessed with top tens, and I dont mind much. And of course, a front page on digg can send you an amazing amount of traffic – so I have to keep a foot there for the future for my own site. And for networking with those who are active in social media, digg is good as everyone is there.
Babychen Mathew: started with SU long time back…
Babychen Mathew: forgot all about it (the general negativity towards all toolbars!)
Babychen Mathew: and then came back to it
Babychen Mathew: I think I started SU almost 2 years back, though I have really been active only in the last one year
Mani Karthik: I must agree. Tell me how does your daily routine look like online? Many people have the idea that power users are geeks who sit rooted in front of their PCs, hours together, and fail to get a life. What’s your thoughts?
Babychen Mathew: Hmm. I am afraid I belong to that category too! But most of my time is spent on my own site, and social media stuff keeps happening in other Firefox tabs! Yes, I spent most of my waking hours in front of the PC, but I spent a lot of time reading news (past journalist background!), reading books and watching TV and going out for something or the other once daily for a break.
Babychen Mathew: as i work from home, I have to invent reasons to go out though
Mani Karthik: Do you use any tweaks for SU? Greasemoneky / Scripts anything?
Babychen Mathew: For SU, none at all. I am happy with stumbling, thumbing up, reviewing and adding tags.
Mani Karthik: Great. So, what do you think are the type of articles that are adored by the SU crowd?
Babychen Mathew: from what I have seen, serious articles don’t do well in SU as far as popularity is concerned. The SU users seem to love pictures (even when they are dupes!) and funnys stuff as long as it has pics. My feelign so far is that almost any topic will do much better if it has interesting pics on it, and the visitors can get a grip on the story at one look. So I guess big fonts and pics should do it for any topic. There is a lot of interest in Bizarre, Science, Gadgets and humor from what I see, but I have seen Su stories going popular from every topic. Pics are critical, I think – more chances of people photoblogging your stuff then.
Mani Karthik: I agree and SU gives a lot of cool pics if you are bored.
Babychen Mathew: yea.
Mani Karthik: Do you agree to the idea of using SU to leverage traffic to websites?
Babychen Mathew: Why not. Every available venue on the Net (or in the real world) will always be used commercially, there is nothing wrong with that. But you would get SU traffic only if your content is good – and appeals to the sensibilities of the SU user. I have come across several sites which I think are using SU for traffic – no harm in that!
Mani Karthik: I agree. So what are the best practices for a newbie to get popular on SU? Or shall I say what will make him powerful to thumbs up a site and give thousands of traffic to it?
Babychen Mathew: hmm.. one important thing about SU is – you don’t need to be a top stumbler to send a lot of traffic to a website. That depends to a large extent on your network of friends. the top stumblers page shows who contributes more to SU (through discoveries, activity, tags, reviews) and usually top stumblers have big networks of friends too – but you really don’t need that. There are stumblers who have been around for long and never made it to the top stumblers page I think.
Babychen Mathew: Traffic is more a function of your network and the topic you are stumbling upon…
Babychen Mathew: For newbies though
Babychen Mathew: the immediate thing I would suggest is to get active. Stumble a lot, search for people who are likely to share your interests, add them and message them. Do not beg for thumbs and traffic the moment you join!
Babychen Mathew: Most newbies have no patience, and want to do it all in a week!
Mani Karthik: I agree.
Babychen Mathew: If you give it time and you are loyal to your stumbling, friends and networks are not a problem at all.
Mani Karthik: I Agree. So your network matters more than anything. so would I be doing the right thing if I keep on adding anyone I see on SU?
Babychen Mathew: of course not. Add only active stumblers who seem to like topics you are interested in too. Adding someone as a mutual friend – what I do is to add someone, watch their activity for a while, and if they are not active or are here only for marketing their own websites, remove them. However, If I find that someone contributes a lot to SU, and is meanwhile trying to get some traffic to his own site, I don’t mind that at all.
Mani Karthik: I get it and completely agree.
Babychen Mathew: I would strongly advice – if anyone doesn’t look like stumbling actively, remove him immediately!
Babychen Mathew: Like all social media, in th end, you have to give it more than you get.
Mani Karthik: Yes, makes sense. It works more like MLM isn’t it? Inactive members are like cancer. Right?
Babychen Mathew: Well, comparing MLM to SU … I wouldn’t do that! But inactive memebers – why add them as friends anyway? There is no point to it. The same way, adding top stumblers only as your friends – there is not much point to it either – they often can’t add you back as they have reached their 200 mutual friends limit!
Mani Karthik: That’s right.
Babychen Mathew: I would yes, you really cant MLM to SU – as MLM is purely about marketing, but in SU, it can never work unless you give it more than you take.
Mani Karthik: You are right.
Mani Karthik: How are the groups in SU doing? I’ve seen that many are not really active. Are they any good joining them?
Babychen Mathew: Some SU groups seem to be very active. And probably it is a good place to find new friends. However, I have never been active in any groups at all.
Mani Karthik: What do you think is the best way to find similar minded folks on SU?
Babychen Mathew: When SU shows you a page and you really like the story or topic, click on the reviews icon on the toolbar and take a look at those who have reviewed it and given it a thumbs up. You will find a lot of like-minded folks there. You can also click directly on the tags you like on the Buzz page, check out the people who are actively stumbling your topics, visit their profiles and thumb up their fav stories.
Babychen Mathew: I sometimes keep checking the friends of my friends too – you find likeminded people there often!
Mani Karthik: That’s indeed a cool tip there.
Babychen Mathew: also, people are curious. Visit the page of someone you like and thumb up a few of theirs, and they are quite likely to come visit your page – and then if you want them to like you, make sure your own blog has quality stuff.
Mani Karthik: Correct.Are there any do’s and dont’s on SU, apart from the official ones. Anything from your experience that you want to share?
Babychen Mathew: Do’s – get active. Discover, review as much as possible. When you can’t thumb it up and tag it. When you can’t tag, at least thumb it up! Visit other stumblers profiles, send messages when you want to tell them something, add only like-minded people and very active stumblers.
Mani Karthik: How about the don’ts?
Babychen Mathew: Don’ts — please try not to stumble your own site. It is a dead giveaway that you are here for marketing, as oftne your name and site name are the same! I did that too. Do not vote up the same sites too often – regular stumbling of the same site seems to reduce your power to send traffic re: that site.
Mani Karthik: I agree. But what if you found many cool pics on flickr? They are all the same site. Any probs in this scenario?
Babychen Mathew: I don’t SU has a problem with that. See, they have an option already called Stumble Thru this site. So it wont matter much. Same for Youtube.
Babychen Mathew: However, Flickr is not dependant on the traffic you send them, so it doesnt matter. When yo continuously stumble the same small sites everyday, your vote keeps geting discounted more and more. But this is purely my observation, and I haven’t seen any strong data on this.
Mani Karthik: Right.
Mani Karthik: What are the SU secrets if at all you have any? (Apart from what you’ve said eaerlier)
Babychen Mathew: I am sure there are SU secrets! But I don’t know many, frankly. I became one of the top stumblers without trying, in fact. I was on a mission to get very active and see what would happen, and a friend told me I was listed there!
Mani Karthik: Shall we say white hat SU?
Babychen Mathew: lol
Babychen Mathew: yes! I mean, white hat SU as you call it is not difficult at all, so why bother with black hat stuff!
Babychen Mathew: The general environment in SU is positive, and its not like everyone has to destroy another site to get your site in front of more people – unlike in, say, Google!
Mani Karthik: True. I’m all for white hat methods.
Mani Karthik: Babychen if I were to ask you to put things into a formula, finally. how would you formulate it?
Babychen Mathew: Very difficult for me Mani. I am all for active stumbling and a bit of patience, and you will see results. I do not have a brain that can really do things systematically!
Babychen Mathew: I can tell you one thing though.
Babychen Mathew: When I get very active in SU for a few days, my Su top stumblers ranking goes up. I move up a few positions as I discover, review and tag more. When I slacken, I go down. The number of people who stumble sites I discovered go up when I am higher up (probaly more people visit my profile then) and when I am lower down in the listings, less people visit me and less people naturally thumb up what I discover.
Babychen Mathew: The take-away from that is, more activity in SU seems to directly affect your strength in SU.
Mani Karthik: Wicked stuff !
Babychen Mathew:
Mani Karthik: Some personal Qs. Which are the websites you run and what are they about?
Babychen Mathew: My main website is www.dancewithshadows.com It is a 4 year old site which now gets a substantial amount of traffic. It is a general news and features website with content from a varied number of topics. I have other experimental sites too but nothing as big as this
Babychen Mathew: The main traffic source for it though is not SU – it is google
Babychen Mathew: Su probably makes up 1-2 % of the traffic it gets.
Mani Karthik: Great. So you live a life completely ON
Babychen Mathew: guess so, but on the Net, you are always lagging behind someone, in something. For example, I have been an abject failure in Digg!
Mani Karthik: There is a piece of cake for everyone. You have yours.
Babychen Mathew: Agree completely! And choose the social media site that is appropriate for your personality – and be happy with it!
That’s it. Hope you got something to take home from it.
A familiar name to me!
Reply
I agree with this
“When yo continuously stumble the same small sites everyday, your vote keeps geting discounted more and more”
Reply
Great interview Mani. Its nice to know more about you Mathew and thanks for sharing your SU tips.
Reply
Quite a interesting interview, I did come to know Babychen thru SU but had a chat with him which turned out to be quite interesting.
Reply
This article has inspired me to up my stumbling. Great interview Mani & fantastic information Mathew
Reply
Thanks for posting this.
Reply
I’d never have this much craziness for any social media site. I am always tend to submit my own sites.
Reply
Yes I have seen this face a lot on SU pages and Digg lots of reviews on SU…One morew question… Do you make a living out of your website? Did you start to get active on these social media more for marketing or for the pleasure of reading those good pages? Does these heavy social media routine hamper the time spent with your family?
Reply
Hello Techblissonline,
Yes, I do make a living out of my website.
When I use social media, I have it at the back of my head that I have to use social media for my site too. But what I have found is that if that becomes my main purpose of being in social media, it becomes a chore. If you see my site, I have very few articles that can do well in SU or Digg. My site is what it is, and social media is what it is. Right now, so, there is very little social media traffic to my site, and I don’t spend my time much on getting it too.
So the amount of SU and digg activity I do, only a minuscule fraction of it is for my own site. It is possible for me because social media is good fun on its own, and while it is possible to leverage it for traffic to my site, that is not what I am doing right now. Re-orienting my site towards social media will be really time-consuming at this time.
And to the last question – I work from home, and my wife helps me out with the site. So we spend all 24 hours together at home! But you know wives…
Reply
Good one Mani, Mathew.
Reply
epic stumbler but I would have liked to know the amount of money that he earned by stumbling and getting traffic from SU
Reply
Ahilosu, I dont think he stumble for making money. hes a passionate stumbler first. He makes money out of his website. probably ads..
Reply
To tell the truth, I was also a failure on digg because I don’t know the politics going on there….the ‘DIGG Mafia’ can get any lame story to Digg Frontpage..while many valuable stories fall behind due to less Digg’s..While In StumbleUpon, everyone gets the share….and no mafia is there..So ppl, dont wait….come To StumbleUpon and leave DiggShit!
Reply
[...] Tips for a better StumbleUpon experience – Interview with a top stumbler “dancewithshadows&rdq… [...]
I even was losing faith on Digg as there are many stories that deserve the front page are purged and useless things sometimes hit the front page. SU is a different experience. The only thing I don’t like about SU is their profile pages. They are mostly very confusing and not very web 2.0′ish. May be they should re-work on that a little bit to get the stumblers motivated. It’s a win-win for both.
Reply
For me Stumble upon is like a great puzzle, which I never understood. Even though I want to use it actively, I dont know how to? I am stumbling my own post without seeing much effect on my traffic.
But well after reading this interview of Babychen Mathew, I will be more serious and will try my best to be a better stumbler. So good to see a Indian doing well with stumble upon. Good luck to him and hope to see him to do more better. And thanks Mani for taking all troubles and posting this information here.
Reply
[...] Tips for a better StumbleUpon experience – Interview with a top stumbler “dancewithshadows” [...]