For those new to blogging, Stumbleupon is like the “Random Blog?” button of the internet. Stumbleupon helps you discover new and interesting stuff on the Web. The more you tell Stumbleupon what you like, it will introduce you to amazing web pages, videos, photos and more that you wouldn’t have found by yourself.

Take a look at this intro video about Stumbleupon.  It’ll help to explain how Stumbleupon works a little better.

How to use Stumbleupon

First of all you’ll need to sign up to Stumbleupon.

There are plenty of ways you can use Stumbleupon but probably the easiest and most common way is by installing a stumble upon browser extension or bookmark.

You can visit the Stumbleupon Downloads page for a complete list:

If you are already using the internet browser that you want to install Stumbleupon on however the easiest way to do this is to visit this link >>>> http://www.stumbleupon.com/addon

It will automatically detect the internet browser you are using and give you instruction on how to install it.  See example below:

Looking at the picture below, after you’ve installed the extension in to your favourite browser, all you need to do is hit the stumble button and you’ll be taken to a different website.

If you like the site, hit the like button

If other people have already liked the site, the “I Like it” button will turn blue.  If not, another page will pop up asking you to add the site to the stumbleupon index.

That’s all there is to it.

So how do you get people to Stumbleupon my blog?

First of all you need to be in the Stumbleupon index. This one is fairly simple, your page just needs to be liked or added as we’ve described above.  You then need to make it easy for people to like your blog whilst using Stumbleupon.  There are two ways this can happen:

1. By people liking your page whilst they are using the Stumble bar or extension.
2. By placing a stumbleupon button on your blog.

How do I place a stumble upon button on my blog?

WARNING

Stumbleupon isn’t designed as a self promotion tool and if you get too excited and start stumbleing every page on your blog you’ll soon see an error message saying:

FAILED TO ADD URL

Stumbleupon has a fairly sophisticated spammer detection and if you start adding every page on your blog one after the other in an attempt to get it in to the stumbleupon index it will block you from adding any more pages for quite a while.  The key here is to slowly drip feed your own blogs pages in to Stumbleupon whilst stumbling across and adding other pages, vidoes and pictures from around the web.

What is popular on Stumbleupon?

Learning what is popular with users on Stumbleupon is key to the success of gaining visitors just like any other forms of social media like Facebook and twitter.  A funny picture, video, detailed imagery are all ways you can see multiple stumblers like your page and take you to viral success.

Short interesting posts with lots of visuals seem to attract a wider following than long text.  Here’s some examples of posts done very well using Stumbleupon:

• Expectiations vs Reality– Things don’t always go as planned. Check out the pics below to see a few examples of what happens when our expectations get punched in the face by reality.
• A dog’s seeing eye dog – Lily is a Great Dane that has been blind since a bizarre medical condition required that she have both eyes removed. For the last 5 years, Maddison, another Great Dane, has been her sight. The two are, of course, inseparable.
• Chocolate Cupcakes with Flaming Strawberries – Besides being a cute novelty item for a party, I think they would add a little drama to the end of a romantic meal.