Do You Stumble?

Social Media has taken the Web (and the world) by storm. Most small businesses are already taking advantage of a number of free Social Media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace and others.

However, there's more to Social Media than Social Networking sites. There's also something known as "Social Bookmarking" sites. If you're not taking advantage of this fad, you probably should be.

While there are literally dozens (perhaps hundreds) of Social Bookmarking sites, today's post will feature my personal favorite: www.stumbleupon.com.

Here are the Top 5 Reasons You Should Stumble...

1. It's free to set up your account. You can add a photo, a bio, links to your blogs or website(s), etc. While you're creating your account, make sure to choose a MINIMUM of ten subjects. I recommend that you choose half of the subjects based on interest, 25% based on necessity of information and the remaining 25% to learn something about an area you have little knowledge and/or interest in. It's great for broadening your horizons.
2. You can build a pretty nice following! Be sure to invite your friends. They'll search your email account contact lists, Facebook friends, etc. so that you can build a bigger presence on the site. This will come in handy when you want to bookmark your own sites, articles or other areas you want to drive traffic to.
3. It's a great way to creatively kill time when you're in between projects, assignments, waiting for a phone call or email, etc.
4. You can increase your own traffic and followers by writing reviews and in-depth comments on the things you thumb up or discover on the site.
5. It's a great source of inspiration! If you've got a pretty targeted list of topics, you can easily find the ammunition you need to create a great blog post, an article, newsletter materials, etc. Never encounter writer's or creativity block again!

We'll deal with Social Bookmarking more in-depth later. With so many different sites to choose from and account to open, I understand that it can get a bit overwhelming. It really helps to start small. Once you see the benefits that just ONE social bookmarking site can offer your small business on a shoestring budget, you'll want to join them all.

But just to get your feet wet, I highly recommend you set up your profile and start stumbling now! Add me to your friends and we can keep each other motivated, inspired and practically procrastinating for months and years to come!

Come follow FemerPie (that's me!): http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/FemerPie/