Secrets Exposed; Bloggers, Stumblers and Muslims
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I know a secret. A secret that led to over 1500 subscribers to my blog in just 2 days. And if you pay attention and do what is required, you too can get the same results. (Only by the Will of Allah, of course)
Do you have a blog that’s kind of slow with traffic? Want more people to review your posts on Stumble Upon? Need more Muslims to come to your website? Read on…
Let’s be honest with each other: why would I want to expose my awesome secret to everyone for free? Well, for one, I too have something to gain. (And because I’m nice. And if you disagree, I hate you.) As all of you now know, I have just officially registered my PR company, Minbar Media. This is a PR company aimed at doing public relations work for Muslims.
In order for me to better serve you, we need to develop a way to reach the Muslim masses quickly and efficiently. What does this have to do with my secret? If done properly, not only will this help YOU drive traffic, subscriptions and potential customers to your websites but this will help develop a new era of Islamic Marketing and Advertising.
So what did I do to get these results?
Welcome to the beginning of a HUGE, genius campaign – and it all starts here at EgyptianGumbo.com.
So, bloggers, stumblers and Muslims, this one’s for you:
A couple of days ago I wrote my “Hijab Challenge” post. The attention it got afterward was not what I expected. That, in turn, lead hundreds of people to my site (by the way, welcome 
.) Afterward, I did what I normally would do and submit my posts to Stumble Upon, only this time instead of submitting it to the usual “Islam” category I submitted it to a different category. (you’ll only be able to know the category if you follow the next steps)
Anyway, the result was over 2,000 new people coming to my site via Stumble Upon in a period of 2 days (hey Stumblers 
.)
And just to see if this method really worked, I tried it again with some of my previous posts on the Leechon Films Blog. Sure enough, 20 minutes later about 127 people had already come via Stumble Upon.
WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET THESE RESULTS? Just keep reading:
OK, so what exactly IS this campaign? We need to educate Muslims on Stumble Upon. Why? The very fact that posting my posts in a category other than “Islam” –which in turn drove so much more traffic to my site– shows the lack of Muslims using these social networking sites.
The result was in an increase in traffic and subscribers (which is all great), but not my primary target audience; Muslims.
The more Muslims that use Stumble Upon and who are active in pressing the “Thumbs up” or “Thumbs down” button, the more our content will be read by our target audience; the Muslim masses all over the world. Thus, driving more traffic, subscribers and consumers to our sites.
More importantly, in order for Muslims to really get stronger — especially in the West — we need to know how to take advantage of these sites and use them to their full potential- so those Islamic articles you’ve written for the Sake of Allah, imagine how many more people will be able to read them and how much more ajr you can get, truly this is the best way to utilize these sites. So, after consulting with the PR team, we agreed that we should launch a PR campaign aimed at educating Muslims on “new media”– specifically, Stumble Upon.
WHAT TO DO:
Alhamdulillah, I had already written a post on the Leechon Blog on what Stumble Upon is and a tutorial on how to use it.
So if you haven’t already registered with Stumble Upon, go ahead and read this post I made and follow along:
“Stumble Upon Something Addictive: New Media Part 2”
Once you have the Stumble Upon Toolbar, go ahead and add the “Islam” category to your interests. Then, go ahead and give this post a thumbs up (to spread it around) and then post something on YOUR blog or website about this campaign. And tell all your friends that also have blogs and websites to do the same. Finally after this done, let me know and i’ll let you know exactly which categories I’ve observed get the most traffic via Stumble Upon.
The potential result?
-immediate attention to the campaign, increase in traffic and subscriptions to your blog, very rapid educating of Muslims around the world, and the ability to reach and connect to our brothers and sisters everywhere
Long post, I know. But it’s sooo worth it… inshaAllah.
Shirien
Safi Says: 30.04.08 at 3:06 am
Great Post!
I think maybe you should add a quick addendum showing how exactly to add the Islam category to your “Interests”… it took me a couple minutes, but maybe its just me because its late and I am overwhelmed by the excitement of your PR company
shirien Says: 30.04.08 at 3:42 am
Jazak Allah khair Brother!
Ok Before I go into how exactly to add the interests:
Just as a testament to how much this works, It’s only been like 20 min since i first posted this and I’m already up to 1641 Subscribers (from 1500)
So again, do what is above and then let me know and i’ll give you the categories that get the most responses
hehe, i love discovering new things, alhamdulillah.
Ok, So if you’re a little confused as to how to add the “Islam” Category- when you register press the “Home” tab, then go to:
Preferences-> My Interests –> Religion–>Islam
There are a couple of ways to do it, and that is one of them.
wallahu alem. Thanks again for the tip. Lets see this posted EVERYWHERE inshaAllah.
Also remember, that when you write a post about it and when you want to submit it into their database.. all you have to do is press the “I Like It!” button and then fill out the information. the KEY that I want you guys to remember is to submit it into the “Islam” Category. and also in order to catch “Stumblers’” attention… mention them in the title of the post.
pass it on… more secrets and tips later inshaAllah.
theManOfFewWords Says: 30.04.08 at 3:51 am
Stumbleupon is a really important tool for any blogger. As a marketing tool it is even better and easier to get exposure than using digg.com.
Thanks for the post! Inshallah the Islamify Blog will also do a post soon on educating Muslims about the basics of Stumbleupon. Thanks for taking the initiative.
Egyptian Gumbo does StumbleUpon | Says: 30.04.08 at 4:02 am
[...] and check out sister Shirien’s latest post on EgyptianGumbo.com. She discusses the use of Stumbleupon to increase traffic to her blog and [...]
Ahmed Eid Says: 30.04.08 at 12:52 pm
Ok Shiriene…I posted a copy of this in my blog…also directly told other bloggers I know to do the same…I will post their blogs once they do it inshaallah
http://supereid86.blogspot.com/2008/04/secrets-exposed-bloggers-stumblers-and.html
MR Says: 30.04.08 at 1:03 pm
I’ve been using StumbleUpon for months and it has greatly increased my traffic. But I haven’t used it as frequently as I should.
Good post!
StumbleUpon Islam | MR's Blog Says: 30.04.08 at 1:07 pm
[...] Have you used StumbleUpon or heard of it? I’ve been using for months now and it has greatly increased my traffic to my blog, alhamdulillah. They also have many different categories and topics, one of them includes Islam. This is a good opportunity to give a better picture of Islam to a younger audience worldwide that use StumbleUpon. It is also a great dawah tool. The only way it can work successful is if all Muslim Stumblers give a thumbs up for all the Muslim submitted content. For example if you like any of my posts or any other Muslim content online, you should give it a thumbs up and submit it to StumbleUpon. Egyptian Gumbo has written more about this. I highly recommend you to read it here. [...]
Neha Says: 30.04.08 at 3:46 pm
mashallah!!
You have a student coming in the next 2 weeks in town….pls make some free time to train her! Inshahallah
Jazak allah khair
Mikael Pittam Says: 30.04.08 at 4:16 pm
Please add yourself to the Muslim StumbleUpon list – http://islamcrunch.com/archives/unofficial-official-muslim-stumbleupon-list/
JazakAllahkhair.
shirien Says: 30.04.08 at 4:33 pm
keep up the good work everyone! MashaAllah… the more we get the word out the more success we will have, inshaAllah.
Neha, you know i’ll always make time for you! inshaAllah
Br. Mikael,
Thanks for the link, could you explain a little more about your site/project?
Mikael Pittam Says: 30.04.08 at 7:16 pm
You can find out our site here: http://islamcrunch.com/about/
We focus on Muslims involved in tech, web 2.0, events, businesses, social networks, social media and many more in between and surrounding those topics.
Alima Says: 30.04.08 at 9:03 pm
Alhamdulillah, posted and presented on AlKauthar forums.
forums.alkauthar.org/showthread.php?p=16910#post16910
WorkHalal.com Blog » Blog Archive » Drive traffic to your website and others through StumbleUpon Says: 13.05.08 at 9:43 pm
[...] For details check out Egyptian Gumbo’s post. [...]
awaqas1 Says: 05.06.08 at 2:15 am
Wow i just downloaded and installed stumble upon, its great.
Its a great tool to discover new material also to get your material across.
Great post,
Jazakallah
(PEOPLE TAKE ACTION!, Try it!, its free)
Its great
*pinches himself, and stumbles onto leechon film ?
Aboo Uthmaan Says: 01.08.08 at 10:39 am
I just installed it but it has not realy increased my traffic that much, is there a “special” way I should be using it in order to start generating a lot of traffic?
Also, I do not seem to have a delete option to delete pages from my favourites, so is it possible to delete pages?
shirien Says: 01.08.08 at 12:21 pm
Assalamu Alaikum Aboo Uthmaan,
Barak Allahu feek for the comment, inshaAllah hopefully this reply will serve as something beneficial to both you and others who want to use Stumble Upon to increase traffic:
First, alhamdulillah the first step is to install the tool bar.
There definitely are techniques one can use to increase traffic.
Part of it has to do with the interest of the topic at hand and the writing style, headline, and lead. (which is really basic guidelines for any media writing)
and the second part of it are the “special” things you should do in order to make it successful.
I’ll tell you right now that not every post will receive tons of traffic. But if you do the steps I’m about to tell you and follow them each time, you should over time be able to drive tons of traffic to your blog.
The first part of it (the writing style and such) is extremely important when it comes to driving traffic. If people dont like what you’re writing or the style it’s written in, you can assume that people will not be passing it on to their friends.
1. The headline of each post should give the reader an idea of what the post is about. Make it clever and eye-catching.
2. the lead or the “hook” which is the first paragraph of your post should also draw the reader into what you have to say. Think to yourself ‘if i were to come across this page and read just the headline and the first paragraph.. would i want to read more about it?’ if your answer is no, or you think that people will read more than just the first paragraph to get interested.. then you need to adjust the article and “hook” them in from the beginning.
3. make your site visually stimulating, include pictures in the posts.
4. add lots of personality in the style of writing.
those are just a few but MAJOR factors to drawing traffic.
The second part is the part that is exclusively Stumble Upon tips.
A. When you submit your site to stumble upon, put it in the correct category… I put most of mine in the ‘Islam’ category because most of my posts have something to do with Islam in one way or another.
B. make sure you add tags. add any key word related to your post. later you will see that in search engines when people look for those key words your site may appear and drive those people to your site.
C. The KEY to stumble upon is that the more people who press the “I like it!” button and the more they “send to” their friends, the more traffic you will get.
this is a major point. What I want you to do is to add your friends or start adding people by pressing the “become a fan of” button when you go to someone’s profile. When that person in return ALSO becomes a “fan” of yours is when you can start to send them pages through the “Send to” button.
Once you start adding people and they add you back.. ANYTIME you make a blog post, i want you to send your page to all those people who are listed as your “friends.”
The more it gets sent around and the more people that press “I like it” inshaallah you will see your traffic increase a lot.
As for your other question. In order to remove pages from your favorites, go to your stumble upon site, press favorites, then when you move your cursor over the favorite that you have added, two links will appear— one will say “edit” and one will say “delete” inshaallah just press the delete button and it should be gone.
InshaAllah let me know if that helps and let me knwo if you need any more help inshaAllah i’ll be happy to show you.
Wallahu alem.
Also, i’ll be teaching a media writing course soon. I’m teaching it to my PR group as of now and “testing the waters” when things prove to be useful and helpful with not only their media writing skills but also increasing their traffic to their blogs, inshaallah i will be teaching it through Message Mastery (www.messagemastery.com).
So people should be looking out for that soon. bi’ithnillahi ta’ala.
Aboo Uthmaan Says: 02.08.08 at 12:44 am
As-salaamu ‘alaikum
Actually, the bit about how to write posts, well… although we use word press, it is used more in the context of a website than a blog, and we use it post transcriptions from lectures and/or books, and translations of work or extracts that has not yet been translated. In other words we do not write our own stuff and as such have very little influence over the style in which something we post is written.
Yes, the tips with regards to using Stumble Upon are very beneficial. With regards to deleting favourites than I do not have the “delete” button, I only have the edit. I also have a website in my history page that I have never seen or visited before, weird! Again, I do not have the option to delete it. Sometimes when I am viewing a web page and I click “I like it”, it does not save the page at all.
Oh well… Jazak’Allaahu khairan!
shirien Says: 02.08.08 at 1:41 pm
can you provide me with the link to the website? Because I know a couple of very dedicated brothers and sisters who are attempting to make a site just for transcribed lectures.
ok your page is “http://islamictexts.stumbleupon.com/”
when you go to there, and you are signed in.. go to the tab that says “favorites” (next to the tabs”what’s new” and “friends”
after that you will see a couple of links. one will say “pages liked” that is where all the pages you pressed “I like it” will appear.
I see what you mean by just the “edit” button. what you do is go to the webpage again.. and then UNCLICK the “I like it button” then it will take it off of your list… but you have to visit the webpage again to unpress it.
I hope that makes things a little more clear. With your “favorites” you have the option of deleting as well as editing.
wallahu alem..
I hope that helps!
Aboo Uthmaan Says: 02.08.08 at 10:43 pm
Jazak’Allaahu khairan for the help! I kind of figured that out in the end and did as you have suggested, but some of the links still show in certain parts of my page, oh well, no problem I guess!
IslamCrunch » Blog Archive » Unofficial Official Muslim StumbleUpon List Says: 23.12.08 at 4:01 am
[...] would like to thank Mujahideen Ryder and Egyptian Gumbo for promoting the use of [...]
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