How to Use Stumbleupon for Promoting Art

Stumbleupon is a social bookmarking community of 25 million users, and over 100 million submitted websites in a vast variety of categories. Artists do not have to be a Stumble Upon member to find their art there. Anyone can stumble your pages and include it in the huge index of sites for others to view.

Becoming a Stumbleupon member carries many advantages though. Not only can you stumble your own artworks, but you can scan the other artists and sites at Stumbleupon for inspiration. By using certain techniques, you can expect sudden bursts of traffic from other Stumble upon members.

 

Whether this traffic leads to eventual art sales is debatable – it can depend on several factors, but mostly on the quality of the image and artwork itself. I will show you some techniques I use at Stumbleupon for promoting my own paintings, along with finding pages as inspiration for my art.

 

Tips and Tricks for Using Stumbleupon for Artists

 

1. Visit Stumbleupon.
   
   Join and completely fill out your Stumbleupon profile. Sometimes other users want to know more about the person who stumbled the item. Having your profile completely filled out will increase the likelihood that others will follow you.  
   
   Find the settings menu by clicking the symbol in the top-right corner in the Stumble Upon bar.
   
   
   Under the Profile tab, fill in basic information about yourself. Write a short bio in the description box, and include a link to your art website here.
   
   The Picture tab is where you can include a small profile image of yourself, which should be the same one you use elsewhere on the web.
   
   The Connected Accounts tab allows you to link accounts from other social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Google+.
   
   Only use this feature if you don’t mind sharing your stumbles with followers at other social networks.
   
   
2. The best pages get popular at Stumbleupon!
   
   Stumbleupon users tend to like pages which are informative, solves a problem, or are visually attractive. As for artwork, they can either give it a thumbs up or thumbs down.
   
   To encourage likes for your artwork, use these tips:
   
   - Include pages with larger photos of your artwork, instead of thumbnail images.
   
   - Only submit pages which include your best artworks.
   
   - Make sure your submitted pages load fast. If your image is too large and takes a long time to load, the viewer will likely just move on to the next page.
   
   - If you are adding only images or video, make sure your name and website is included within the photo or video.
   
   
   
   
3. How to Add Your Art to Stumbleupon
   
   To include your own artworks to Stumbleupon, visit the extensions page. This page features various browser add-ons to easily post your artworks to the Stumbleupon network. There are versions available for Firefox, Google Chrome, Iphone, Ipad, and Android. Click the appropriate extension based on the browser you are using.
   
   After installing, each time you want to share something, click the Stumble button in your web browser.
   
   
   When you do, a popup appears like the one above. Indicate if the page is safe for work (ie for family viewing) and choose a general category from the list. Add appropriate tags (limit 5), which will help other users find your art when they search by specific keywords. A short comment should describe the piece and also include descriptive keywords here. Finally, choose your language, and click the Add this Page button.
   
   
4. Use Stumbleupon for Inspiration
   
   Stumbleupon is a great place for easily finding inspiration and ideas for artworks, which can be saved by clicking “I like it” and retrieved later. As with most social networks, it is recommended to consistently share other pages, rather than just your own.
   
   There are two ways of surfing other pages – by choosing a category from modes and interests in the dropdown menu or by using the search feature.
   
   Specific types of pages can be surfed, such as only photos or videos. Even surf the pages of only those you follow by clicking the Following tab.
   
   If you have a very specific interest, simply enter it into the search box.
   
   You can now surf a variety of Stumbleupon pages based on your search term.

Have you used Stumbleupon to promote your own paintings and art-blog/art website… or for inspiration? Do you think Stumbleupon users are responsive to buying art, or do they just contribute to the bounce rate? (The bounce rate is the number of people who visit your website and leave right away, without viewing another page)