Sunday, December 16, 2007

Stumbling..."Hand-in-Hand"

You may have noticed I recently added this button to the sidebar.

StumbleUpon

I placed it there because I decided to start Stumbling. We all know that a writer isn't merely a writer, but a salesperson. We have to sell our talent if we're ever going to have it featured in our dream markets! Multi-tasking is what we do, right?

Social networking is a huge part of what we do as well. Editors, clients, and/or lifelong friendships/relationships are found through networking. I'm reading more and more discussions on blogs and trails of comments about how amazingly productive blogging is (which really is networking) and what it can lead to. I feel the same way about tools like StumbleUpon. I'm convinced my decision to join is going to help this blog grow and who knows how it will help my freelance writing--or who I'll cross paths with.

Melissa Donovan at Writing FORWARD recently shared her newfound success with StumbleUpon. It's most interesting to find out how quickly her site experienced positive results. Melissa explains, "As I saw the numbers skyrocketing, I poked around to see what was happening and found several contributing factors..." Read her post, Stumbling November, to find out more. You'll really enjoy it!

The Writer's Round-About's Rebecca Laffar-Smith broke down the web statistics of her blog in her recent post, Hit Explosions - StumbleUpon More Traffic. Amazed at how Stumblers have improved her traffic flow, she talks about unique visitors : "This means that hundreds of people are discovering the site for the first time thanks to StumbleUpon." Her technical mind really adds a nice perspective. Not all writers consider the technical aspects like Rebecca does. Glean from her knowledge!

Of course, there are many ways to network. Some of the places I can be found are: MyBlogLog, Technorati, and don't forget StumbleUpon.

Melissa is showing her appreciation to anyone who links to her blog and/or leaves comments by Stumbling them. Rebecca asks us to help one another by Stumbling our favorite sites and blog entries. So, are you going to join us by Stumbling, hand-in-hand?

I have to share one more post for your weekend reading. It's not about Stumbling, but Susan Johnston, over at The Urban Muse, looks at networking from a different perspective. She talks about how social networking helps us find sources for interviews, stating: Being a child of the computer age, I do almost all of my source searches online at these sites... Find out which sites in her post, Finding Sources Through Social Networking. You just have to check it out! Hey, you can Stumble her, too!

Happy writing... no... Happy Stumbling the cyber highway!

Stumble Writing the Cyber Highway!

You never know... I may have already Stumbled you, or I might soon!