Following my resolution to “Ask for help." Help with what? StumbleUpon.

One of my happiness-project resolutions is to Ask for help. Sometimes this is easy, sometimes it’s surprisingly hard.

If you’ve been reading The Happiness Project for a while, you might have noticed the links at the bottom of every article: ‘Digg This!’ or ‘Stumble It!.’ In case you are as mystified as I once was about what these describe, I thought I’d explain what they’re for: these are links to social media websites, which people use to share and spread content.

Social media sites have two sides. One side: using the service to find great new material online. The other side: suggesting material for other people to see.

All the social media sites have their strengths and weaknesses. I thought I’d explain my current favorite, StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon is a fantastic web service that lets you page-surf the internet just like you would channel-surf on TV.

With StumbleUpon, with the click of a button, you’re sent to a website (based on your interests) and can vote whether you like a page or not. The more popular a site is, the more likely others will see it.

Also, when you’re cruising through the internet, you can propose a site by hitting the button to indicate “I like it!” Then that site gets thrown into the mix for others to “stumble upon.”

To be honest, I used to be a more active user, but stopped for a while when I became too busy. Same with Digg and Twitter. Now that I’ve got things under control, I’ve picked these tools up once more. They can be a lot of fun and are a great way to find interesting and useful material. If anything, it’s almost overwhelming at times, contemplating all the great stuff to read.

I’ll warn you: Stumble Upon is great, but I also find it a bit confusing at times. Especially with figuring out how to connect with other users -- I'm still finding my way. So if you’re trying it out, and you’re not sure if you’re doing it exactly right, I know how you feel! Like all new technology, just get in there and mess around – it's fun to experiment, and eventually you become adept.

I was pleasantly surprised when I recently realized that StumbleUpon sends me traffic on a regular basis. So, if you’re intrigued, I’m going to follow my resolutions to Ask for help in using social media to get the word out about The Happiness Project. If you happen to enjoy an article here, I would love it if you could share it by giving it a Stumble (or a Digg or del.icio.us bookmark, if that’s your thing). I think this would be a great way to let other people know about The Happiness Project, and would so appreciate your help. People really respect the recommendations of other people.

Are you a StumbleUpon user? Connect with me on my StumbleUpon profile.

Have you had success with social media? Share your tips and experiences.

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I enjoy checking out The Positivity Blog. Good stuff there.

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Interested in starting your own Happiness Project? If you’d like to take a look at my Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

Comments

[Yield to Pedestrian]

StumbleUpon = amazing + confusing all at once.

I could not agree more. I get surprising amounts of traffic, especially to my site on pregnancy & parenting, from StumbleUpon, but I admit I am still trying to figure it all out.

One feature of StumbleUpon I was surprise by is how EASY it is to use. It is much easier than Digg or even Technorati. I use Digg the most because it is organized more logically for me, but I Stumble other people's work a lot because it is so quick and easy.

So if you are new to social media, start with Stumble Upon! It is a quick way to give props to those you like.

Have a great day!

[kare Anderson]

Gretchen
To make this more on topic, might you have StumbledUpon this conference on happiness, luckily happening near me?
http://www.happinessanditscausessf.com/index.stm

[Glee Girl]

I hear ya, Gretchen. I joined StumbleUpon about a month ago, but found it all too confusing and too hard to connect with other people and have barely been back since. I have been meaning to set aside some time when my brain isn't too full of other stuff to go back and work it out but haven't so far. Brain always seems to be full...

I don't think it would benefit my blog much, but I guess it's probably worth it for me to find stuff that interests me.

[JulietteD]

Hey G, I was a Twitter fan for a minute, then found my day got too busy to remember to twitter...and I kept forgetting to do it...maybe I should look at it again? I'm checking out Stumble now...

[Charlie D.]

Mirroring the comments of Glee Girl and Yield to pedestrian I felt the same way. Thanks for the reminder to check out StumbleUpon Gretchen as I did and found another blog I liked.