There’s always those weird headlines you see in your Twitter or Facebook feed that catch your eye and this was one of them:

Stumbleupon Drives More Than 50% of Social Traffic.

I didn’t believe it when I saw it on Mashable. I thought Stumbleupon was so 2008. But apparently, it’s still going strong, and its viral capabilities still pump in droves of traffic to blogs. Stumbleupon only has 12 million users compared to 750 million that Facebook has, but the difference is that all Stumbleupon users are doing is surfing the Internet based on their interests and receiving targeted results based on community votes.

So the question is, “Do you need to start paying attention to Stumbleupon again?”

Should Internet marketers include this in their strategy for building traffic to client websites?

These are all questions to consider, but it all depends on what your business has to offer. If your business doesn’t have a blog that’s integrated into your website, then Stumbleupon doesn’t make a lot of sense. Stumbleupon is about discovering great content that teaches you, inspires you, or makes you think. If you Stumble your “About Us” page, that’s not what people want to stumble on.

This brings up the importance of small and large businesses using their blog as their main source of producing original content. It builds credibility and it’s SEO gold these days. Having said all of that, I’m going to resurrect my old Stumbleupon account and start being more active with it, because I think it does serve the purpose bringing in a steady flood of new visitors that could be converted into regulars if you capture them with your content.

Brazen Careerist has launched a new version of their website, which is a ground-breaking career management tool for young professionals. Do you have a hard time using LinkedIn, because it’s dominated by people older than you with bigger resumes and more experience? Do you hate how every job description asks for experience, when you don’t have any relevant work experience? Insert: the new Brazen Careerist career management tool.

I am proud to say that I met Ryan Paugh and Ryan Healy at the beginning stages of Brazen Careerist when Penelope Trunk decided to transform her Brazen Careerist brand into a business. Two years later, they have focused their attention on what the website seeks to accomplish which is helping young people network with other professionals, share their professional ideas, and showcase their creativity and expertise.

If I had to describe the new launch in one sentence, it would be this: Brazen Careerist 2.0 is the synergy of Facebook and LinkedIn for young professionals.

Now, enough of me hyping it up, let’s take a look inside:

When you first visit the site, you’ll be prompted to sign up as a new member. Go ahead and do that if you’re not already a member. If you’re already a member, your original user name and password will work, and all of your previous biography information has been saved from the original site. Once you log in, you’ll see a whole new layout with an emphasis on community, social networking, and learning from one another. Much like Facebook, you can become a fan of other members of the community, and you’ll start seeing their ideas and updates via the fan feed.

Once you’ve updated your resume and profile information, click on the “Profile” tab to see your finished profile that all other members will be able to see. My favorite part of the profile section is that it incorporates other social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook.

Here are some other great features on the new site:

• Ability to join groups and create new groups. You’ll love the functionality of the “Groups” section much more than LinkedIn’s group section.
• Your own message Inbox within the site.
• Ability to import your blog feed to your profile for others to see
• Search for people to connect with by their ideas, not their credentials!

I am really excited about this new launch, and even though I won’t be abandoning my LinkedIn profile, I think I’ll find myself networking on Brazen Careerist more often, because the interface is easy to use, there are tons of people my age on there, and the focus of the site is about ideas and creativity, rather than a bunch of letters after your name.