10 Simple Tips to StumbleUpon Success (That I Wish Someone Had Told Me About)

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I’ve been a member of StumbleUpon since November 16th, 2007. I didn’t start using it in earnest until January 9th, 2008 @ 6:02pm EST.

That post was the first in a litany of posts that I’ve designated as one of ‘My Favorites’. In little over a month’s time I have nearly 100 fans (maybe today I’ll cross over;) and receive around 25 visitors who stumble upon my page each day.

In that time frame, I’ve learned heaps about SU and want to share 10 tips that can make you a big hit on StumbleUpon. But before I give you the TOP TEN, I need to do 2 things first:

#1 - Tell you about the approach I would recommend taking on StumbleUpon:

When I first came to SU, like many of you, I was looking at it as a way to bring traffic to my blog, but a beautiful thing happened along the way, I fell in love with the site. I now look at SU as the best way I know of to find and share interesting and helpful content with my SU friends, which I love doing (to a fault almost, very addictive).

Keep in mind, I am aware that by helping others it should help me in the end, but I don’t put myself first. If you take any other approach to SU, I doubt you’ll find what you’re looking for.

#2 - I want to share with you some of the things I’ve gotten out of StumbleUpon over the last 35 days:

• An education in what social networking and social bookmarking is all about
• I’ve struck up friendships with some very interesting and delightful people
• I’ve become extremely well read in my field of expertise; I’m a better, quicker reader now and my brain is active, therefore I feel a lot sharper, especially when I speak to other people
• I occasionally receive warm thank you emails from people that I send traffic ‘pops’ to, which makes me feel good.
• I’ve been able to establish relationships with blogs and sites that used to ignore me, now I’m definitely on their radar. In the last 3 days alone, I’ve had conversations with 2 of the biggest bloggers in my niche, one stumbled a post of mine and another responded to a SU email in under a minute. Now I’m friends with both. Before SU, I couldn’t even get a response from either one.
• I wield a certain amount of power that gives me a sense of accomplishment

I could probably go on but I’ll leave it to you guys to add comments down below. Let’s get to the quick and dirty (to quote Dylan Ratigan from CNBC)

10 Simple Tips That Will Help You To Succeed on Stumble Upon:

Adopt the mindset that you’re on SU for fun, not for business. If something good happens look at it as a bonus. Don’t have such high expectations, they will be dashed. I know lots of people that get depressed about not getting traffic from SU. That used to be me in a nutshell, not anymore. Now, if and when traffic comes, I see it as a blessing.

Take the same approach to SU that you would to something you really care about. If you’re on the site 100% for fun, then enjoy yourself and do whatever you want. If you’re there for more than fun, treat it the same way you would that antique car you’re restoring in your garage… with care!

Create a nice mix of articles that you decide to make your ‘favorites’ and ones you just give a ‘thumbs up’ to. In my estimation, way too many people just give a ‘thumbs up’ and never leave a review. I leave a review for over 60% of the pages I like.

When leaving a review don’t leave drivel. I try to write something descriptive that I know will clue the readers in on the post. Sometimes I’ll write a short paragraph (or 2) if that’s what it takes.

If you review, don’t just quote(”") the article (this is a personal pet peeve.) I can’t stand that. I almost always skip over articles that don’t provide a hand written review in the words of the reviewer. I used quotes myself the first few days on SU, but quickly stopped it.

By leaving a review you accomplish a number of things: you’re telling people you actually read the cited article and took the time and effort to write a few words. More importantly, not only are you letting them know about the article, you’re letting them know about you.

In the long run, people gravitate towards certain stumblers because they respect their opinions, taste and judgment. They’re interested to see what he (or she) is going to stumble next.

Take the time when discovering or reviewing a piece to choose the right topic or category and add the appropriate tags. I know it can be a bit painstaking to go through the drop down list or take a few extra seconds to pick the right topic, but trust me it’s worth it.

Many reviewers are flippant about the review, the topic and tags they choose, they often mislabel things. What do you think that says about them? It says to me I probably won’t be as likely to open their stumbles going forward.

Review others Stumblers, this is something I need to improve upon and plan to change this month. Like everything I’ve recommended, take the time to write something heartfelt and real. Just yesterday I reviewed Spostareduro, who is a great stumbler in my estimation. After my review she emailed me the following:

omg…that was so sweet of you. (blushing)..
Thank you so much.

It made her feel great, it made me feel great. You can’t buy that kind of goodwill! Remember what I said up above, put others above yourself and you’ll reap the rewards.

When choosing a topic or tags, choose wisely. After reviewing something, you can use up to 5 tags. I tend to use a few broad categories, as well as, niche categories. Don’t be afraid to use all 5 tags, again a little extra work but worth it.

If you’ve got a real interesting story, video or photo… make sure to tag it in the most appropriate ‘large’ category, don’t file it away in some small category, or worse, not leave a tag at all.

Think about integrating your blog with your SU page. This may not work for everyone. This past Sunday I announced that, for the most part, I was going to start leaving comments, I normally would have left on a person’s blog post, on my SU page instead (in the form of a review).

This way the comment is far less likely to go unnoticed and may even drive some nice traffic to that post. At the same time, it allows me to not spread myself too thin and focus on one place instead of two. I think it’s a great way to maximize your efficiencies and a win win for everyone involved.

It’s a Wrap

I know there’s a lot more to be added but I’m running long here, as I tend to do (note to self: work on brevity), but to quote the great Governor of California, “I’ll be back…”

We will call this post my ‘informal one month update’ and I’ll see you again with another Stumble Upon status report around St. Patrick’s Day. Follow my progress on SU if you like, and drop me a line to let me know what you think!

I hope this helps you to ‘discover’ what SU category you fit into…

Updated March 2nd, 2008 @ 1:36pm EST

The funny thing is I write a site about financial planning and I get the most traffic (like right now) and attention whenever I write an article pertaining to my social media experience.

Maybe I should start writing a blog about that? Just kidding, but it is something I really enjoy learning and writing about. So later on today I will be adding a new category titled My Community and Social Media and will post relevant articles there.

I think it may help because I’m learning as I go and I am not a professional in the field, just a guy who likes to dive in head first (much like I wrote in this guest post on ProBlogger).

So look out for that and thanks for dropping by!

Tags: Community and Social Media, StumbleUpon