StumbleUpon is one of the greatest (and most under-utilized) tools in the social media arsenal. Today I’m going to cover the “dos and don’ts” of StumbleUpon.
5 Things you SHOULD do if you want to get more stumbles on your own posts on StumbleUpon:
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DO Stumble at least 15 pages a day randomly from their “Stumble” button. Preferably more, because if they see that you are an active user who contributes to the community, your stumbles will be given a lot more credit.
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DO Stumble pages that you want to “thumbs up” in between other “thumbs down” and change up how often you “thumbs up” and “thumbs down”. So for example a normal stumbling session of multiple pages would work like this… go to the page I want to “thumbs up” and give it a “thumbs up”, hit stumble button twice, both times “thumbs down” (unless you just really love the page), then go to another page that you want to “thumbs up”, now hit the stumble button 3 times and “thumbs down” those pages (make it random – if they see a pattern in your “ups” and “downs” you won’t be as highly rated a user). Ideally if you have the time and really want to be a “super-user” you would “thumb up” and “thumb down” a lot more and you would rate the pages by what you really think of them, not just to garner hits on a specific website.
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DO comment on posts through StumbleUpon’s comment section. This shows StumbleUpon that you are doing more than quickly scanning through the pages and will ultimately help your user rating in their eyes.
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DO use the Google Reader “Next button” to inter-mix blogs you follow between your normal StumbleUpon session. (I will explain this process better in the video below.)
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DO add friends that share interests on StumbleUpon and start adding blogs you enjoy (that you discover at StumbleUpon) to your Google Reader so that you can stumble their posts with your other friends, especially if you find a “friend” that will reciprocate your “thumbs up”.
5 Things you SHOULD NOT do if you want to get more stumbles on your own posts on StumbleUpon:
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You SHOULD NOT “thumbs up” all of your own posts. StumbleUpon will figure out what you are doing, especially if those are the only pages you are liking! Also, you get a lot more traffic if someone else stumbles your post first.
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You SHOULD NOT spam your friends on StumbleUpon by sending them posts constantly. It is okay to send a post out to them on occasion if it is really special, but when you flood your friend’s inbox on StumbleUpon with a new post or two every day, you’re more likely to get dropped as a friend than have them “thumbs up” your post.
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You SHOULD NOT only “thumb up” posts. StumbleUpon wants to know that you are using their service to rate websites that you like AND dislike. If you only ever like posts, they will see this and it will diminish your StumbleUpon awesome-ness!
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You SHOULD NOT “thumb up” posts simply because the other user reciprocates a “thumb up”. Make sure you are exchanging likes with bloggers or website owners that you respect and actually follow. Liking someone’s post who automatically reciprocates has immediate benefits, but if you start gaining fans to your StumbleUpon account, they will not like to see that you just stumbled a picture of some guy farting on a pink poodle while playing a ukulele.
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You SHOULD NOT cater your blog to gain StumbleUpon likes only. There are many blogs that only cater to StumbleUpon users by putting some funny or cute picture right on top just to gain “thumbs up”. While this is effective at getting your post stumbled, it does not add to the quality of your blog and it will not gain new readers. Most people are liking your post based on five or less seconds of viewing it and then moving on. You want your post to be relevant and you want it to get stumbled because of good content.
These are just a few tips I wanted to share with everyone about StumbleUpon and how to make using it a little easier. I hope you enjoyed the post and please let me know if you have any questions or if you found this helpful! Also, be sure to add us as a friend on StumbleUpon by visiting our profile and following us at —> http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/theworld4realz
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