I shared this a few weeks ago over at Plucky’s Second Thought as part of Jess’s Tips and Tricks series.  I wanted to make sure you guys all saw it too so I am re-sharing my tips for using StumbleUpon for your blog here.

One of my major goals for 2014 is to increase the number of people who visit my blog.  Of course, I want them to all stick around once they get here but getting them here is my first goal.  StumbleUpon has been a HUGE traffic driver for me since the start of the year and I am absolutely loving it {if you are here FROM SU, thanks so much for stumbling in!}.  Along the way, I’ve learned a few things about StumbleUpon that I wanted to share with you in case you were interested in trying it out.

Now, before we go too far, I do want to say that I am far from a StumbleUpon expert. I am still learning every day new things about StumbleUpon but I have been pretty successful at using it to increase my traffic.  But, here are my tips for using StumbleUpon.

Build a real profile.  
When you sign up for StumbleUpon, it is tempting to create a profile of interests strictly related to your blog topic.  Don’t do it.  You are a real person with interests outside of your blog topic and so your profile (a.k.a. your Stumble DNA) should reflect that.  It will help StumbleUpon decide what content to send you.

Try to avoid discovering your owns post.  
Now, that may seem odd because you are now depending on others to get your posts into the StumbleUpon system.  This is a greatly debated subject and the consensus is that it is better for your post to be discovered by someone else.  Or, if you must discover your own, do it at a 10:1 ratio…10 posts on other sites discovered for every 1 you discover of your own.

Stumble randomly.  
Once a day, open up the toolbar and click stumble to check out some new sites.  I try to do this somewhere between 5-10 times per day (i.e. viewing 5-10 sites) and then thumbs up or thumbs down based on whether I genuinely liked the page or not.  This really help StumbleUpon think you are using the site as a genuine user versus someone who is trying to use it only as a promotion tool.

Avoid overstumbling.  
This basically means that you shouldn’t discover posts from the same website too many time in a short period of time.  If you do, StumbleUpon may penalize you and prevent you from stumbling or discovering pages from that site for a set period of time.

Put a StumbleUpon button in your share button on posts.  
Yeah, that is obvious right?  The best way to get people to Stumble your stuff is to give them an easy way to do it.  When I am on mobile, the StumbleUpon toolbar doesn’t work as great as it does on my laptop so I pretty much stick to only stumbling stuff with the StumbleUpon button in the share bar.
Find a StumbleUpon group. 
I am a member of several groups on Facebook that help promote each other’s posts through StumbleUpon.  We all are careful to follow the rules but, at the same time, help get content into the StumbleUpon system.  I highly recommend seeking out a few groups one Facebook or Google+ {or even starting your own} to help you really get started with StumbleUpon.

Build Your Favorites.
Growing a list of favorite profiles in StumbleUpon is a great way to build your stumble “power.”  You can routinely visit your favorites and then stumble their likes to make sure you are getting a wide variety of pages that you are stumbling.  I try to do it once or twice a week and stumble someone’s likes 4-5 times. 

So, I hope these tips have gotten you interested in using StumbleUpon more.  The whole thing can seem a little daunting when you just start out but it really is quite easy once you get started.  In fact, I challenge you to go create a profile and then discover someone’s post today. 

You can visit me on StumbleUpon to see some of my favorite Stumbles.

Want to learn more about different social media sites?  Check out my post on the basics of Google+!