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How to be a Power Stumbler on StumbleUpon

October 26th, 2007 | 17 comments

A week or two ago Andy pointed out an outstanding post about how the StumbleUpon algorithm is believed to work as described by Tim Nash.

However, the last part of the post is for guys like Tim and Andy who are much smarter than I :) So here is how to become a power Stumbler by increasing your audience score in extreme laymen terms:

1. Be the first to stumble stories that have a good chance of becoming popular. Being a frequent reader of the more popular blogs is a good way to do that. I don’t see anything wrong with stumbling your own posts as well, as long as you are only stumbling those which you believe contain awesome info.

2. Stumble alot. The more thumbs up or down you give, the stronger your stumbles will be. This is as simple as the obvious. Use the SU toolbar to stumble pages. I normally only stumble pages from friends.

3. Get as many fans as possible. In your account you’ll see the number of mutual friends and the number of fans. If someone adds you, but you don’t add them, they are your fans. Once you add them they are no longer fans; they are mutual friends. I’d imagine they are one in the same when it comes to the algorithm. So don’t be afraid to add friends! If you want to add me go for it, I’ll add you as well - http://josh-spaulding.stumbleupon.com/ and as I said, I frequently stumble friends pages, so I’ll more than likely stumble your pages if they are good.

Popularity: 100% [?]

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17 comments

  1. CHESSNOID (2 comments.)
    27th October, 2007 at 3:54 pm 

    Good post of stumbleupon. I really like this tool mostly for finding things that I like, and the more I use it the more accurate it seems to become. I have added you to my stumbleupon friends.
    Cheers.

  2. Josh Spaulding
    27th October, 2007 at 5:25 pm 

    Thanks Chessnoid, I’ve received a bunch of friends requests from this post and I’ll be adding them to my friends list gradually within the next few days.

    I’ve noticed a few thumbs down from non-marketers, but I supposed that’s to be expected.

  3. Keith Johnson
    27th October, 2007 at 7:02 pm 

    Great article…..many thanks!!!

  4. Amanda (2 comments.)
    28th October, 2007 at 12:14 am 

    Hiya Josh,

    Thanks for the post about StumbleUpon. Social networking is something that eludes me quite a bit. You mention being a reader of the “more popular blogs” can help a bit. Are you just speaking in general or is there way to find which blogs are the most popular?

    Also, would you recommend making seperate accounts if you work in different niches–especially niches outside of IM? It seems like if you’re trying to target a certain audience this approach would work better or no?

    Thanks again for the great info–I always look forward to your new posts. :-)

  5. Josh
    28th October, 2007 at 3:57 am 

    Hey Amanda,

    I was just speaking in general, but you can find the top 100 “make money online” type blogs at http://www.45n5.com/top100/

    hmm that’s a tough one. I only use one account, but I don’t use social networks for my sites that are outside of IM, although I probably should. If I were to start, yes, I would more than likely create a separate account for each niche just to keep everything relevant.

    No problem at all and thanks for stopping by :)

  6. My Favorite posts this week | The Successful Part-Time Networker
    28th October, 2007 at 10:47 pm 

    [...] How to be a Power Stumbler on StumbleUpon [...]

  7. Stephen Cronin (34 comments.)
    29th October, 2007 at 3:47 am 

    Hi Josh, I’ve added you… I joined StumbleUpon a while ago, but haven’t been using it. I’ve been meaning to get into it more and your post might just be the spur! Thanks.

  8. Josh Spaulding
    29th October, 2007 at 3:49 am 

    Thanks Stephen, I just reciprocated. In the next hour or two I’m going to write a post on my results, nearly amazing!

  9. 2,957 Reasons to Use StumbleUpon | Make Money Blog
    29th October, 2007 at 6:34 am 

    [...] multiple times in a day so if you want to keep up with everything you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting and I look forward to hearing from you. Something like that’s great to [...]

  10. Kaja Mohideen (3 comments.)
    1st November, 2007 at 2:08 pm 

    Oh!. Thanks. I just thought that StumbleUpon traffic is not good and I always stay from it. Let me give a try.

  11. Alex Liu (4 comments.)
    19th November, 2007 at 5:51 am 

    Thumbs up! Great content!

    Me again. Your blog looks like a treasure of marketing tips to me. I was so scared to stumble a lot in the past and not sure should I do so. Your post empowered me!

    Thanks.

  12. The Emperor’s New Blog - A Tale of Social Proof — Terry Heath
    8th February, 2008 at 6:23 pm 

    [...] marketer hit the social marketing circuits and submitted the emperor’s blog to Digg, he wrote favorable reviews on StumbleUpon, and built numerous backlinks so the blog would do well in the search engine placements. He even [...]

  13. seocontest2008 (6 comments.)
    24th February, 2008 at 12:09 am 

    Josh,

    Never thought of being a “power stumbler” - will give it a try!
    I have added you as a friend on SU - arora2002 is my user name.

    Abhishek.

  14. Josh Spaulding
    24th February, 2008 at 5:30 pm 

    Hi Abhishek.,

    Just added you :) Happy stumbling.

  15. seocontest2008 (6 comments.)
    24th February, 2008 at 9:34 pm 

    Busy at the moment but will have a look at your favorite stumbles later on.

    Happy Stumbling !

  16. Isaac (1 comments.)
    9th March, 2008 at 7:08 pm 

    Good write up. What do you think about posts with lots of pictures? There always seems to be a lot of posts with funny or strange pictures on it that come up when I start stumbling.

  17. Josh Spaulding
    9th March, 2008 at 7:16 pm 

    Hi Isaac,

    Yep, cool pictures tend to do very well on SU.

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