So I figured I’d do a post about something that really bugs me. I have 70 stumble friends and last time I went through and send them a post only 3 people gave my post a thumb up! When and of my stumble friends send me a website it not only gets stumbled, I comment on it in order to give them the greatest benefit possible.
I wont even start to get into the benefits of Stumble Upon, they are huge, but would take a far longer post than this to describe. The bottom line is if you’re not using it you are missing out on one of the biggest possible traffic sources on the internet.
Anyway I personally will be using this post to clear out my friends list. If you don’t like this post you’re not the type of friend I want anyway.
Every once in a while I suggest doing a post, with fairly widespread appeal, every once in a while and sending it to your full list. Look at everyone who gives it a “thumbs up”, and delete the rest. I’m personally considering using this post to do house cleaning on my list. Heck you can even copy this post and use it on your blog for all I care.
What I really want to do is share a few tips on being a good stumble friend:
1 – Thumbs up sites your friends send you **If you like it, but strongly consider it** (the basic do unto others what you would have them do unto you). It takes 5 seconds to gives a thumbs and is a big boost to your friends.
2 – Thumbs up your friends’ profile It benefits you both. The more people who like your friend the more value it has when your friend stumbles your posts. It’s a win-win.
3 – Stumble sites your friends have liked It’s as easy as clicking a button. Again this will benefit you and your friends if you all do it. They will more likely have their personal pages stumbled, and so will you. I don’t stumble random sites. I look through ones my friends have liked.
4 – Add people as friends who add you as a fan. I rarely personally add people as friends out of the blue anymore. If people add me as a fan, then I make them a friend, and will continue to do so until I hit my 200 limit. Take an interest in people who take an interest in you.
5 – When you thumbs up a post, leave a comment – When you comment on a post it gives more juice. All you have to do is as little as highlighting a piece of text from the article and use that.
*** If anyone has any more tips to being a good friend please leave a comment and add it to the list**
If everyone starts doing these thing it will add a great benefit to you and your friends alike.
If you think you may have bad stumble friends feel free to use this post. Just copy it to your blog and stumble it sending it to all your friends. Feel free to just copy it but please give me credit.
Your Stumble Friend,
DaMan
http://demerchant.stumbleupon.com/
14 comments ↓
I have been using stumbleupon for over a year, and just now found out that you can have “friends”…. I use myspace for that, to me stumbleupon is just a great way to get fresh new web pages that I know will appeal to me.
Well, I have been using StumbleUpon for quite awhile now. I have known about friends on there.
However, I refuse to give a thumbs up to a post or a page that I do not like just because I have added someone as a friend. To me this dilutes the whole system of marking pages as good or bad. I am currently on your friends list, but I can see that since I don’t agree with your philosophy of giving thumbs up to every friends pages no matter what, then I will no longer be listed as your friend.
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Hi Justin.
Yes funny things do happen at SU. I reviewed over 300 SU blogs and got myself a little over 30 reviews. Thats a relation of 10 to 1. OK. That does not worry me.
Yes and I do understand your points.
However.
SU is a thing in itself. What you actually mean above is to use SU as a promotion tool for blogs hosted somewhere else. This would make sense for ‘money making bloggers’ but IS NOT advisable according to the rules of SU.
Yes, I do have a variety of blogs. None of them got as much attention and as much feed back in a certain time than my SU Blog.
In communication, feed back, discovering new content and for all my purposes, the SU Blog has the biggest potential. (Praise to SU). Commenting on sites and blogs is a powerful and fair tool.
The philosophy to just add friends in order to stumble each other reciprocally might be a ‘cool idea’ but will not work in the long run.
I advise to just stick to SU rules, build up a good strong profile in your niche (and that means to only add people as friends who DO HAVE the same main interests like you).
Then you will become an expert in your niche and your votes will have more weight.
Wish you well.
Dear DeMerchant, I totally get your point and remain your SU friend forever!
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Great post in a perspective that you outlined the most common problem with SU friends list. I hope it works out for you to the best – and yes, I did like it
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Hi,
I added my friends on stumbleupon for a reason, either:
1) they added me first, or
2) because I like some of the stuff they’ve stumbled.
It doesn’t mean I like everything they stumble, but I do make the effort to read it.
If I like it, it gets a thumbs up. If not I have a quick look around and usually find a page I do like.
It just doesn’t feel right giving a thumbs up to something I either don’t like or disagree with.
flybywire2
Love your post, I totally agree with you. The whole point of stumble upon is to drive traffic to your sites and your friends sites. And that’s what SU friend s are for.
Thanks…
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Stumble Friends are like Friends in “real time.” Not everyone that comes into our life is our friend. Because someone says hello doesn’t make them your friend.
If you send someone stumbles, but you don’t share that interest with the person or they may not like that site, then why would you consider them “NOT” a friend because they disagreed with what you like? I am not understanding that concept. I have so many people that bombard me daily with stumbles (at least 45 a day) and all asking me to stumble the websites they like.
my “REAL FRIENDS” send me private messages and say, “HAVE A GREAT DAY”/////// THAT IS WHAT TRUE FRIENDSHIP IS/// just saying, “HI!”
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Mate, This is a cool post. I really like it. Thank God, you are in my SU network.
I usually take the time to read pages that my friends message me about, but sometimes there are just too many to read. In those cases I pick and choose based on the title.
In my case, I give a thumbs up largely based on it being spam or not. As long as it is not spam, I’ll give a thumbs up to good content that I think is worth a read. Personally I think content that is well written is worth a read even if I don’t personally support the particular point of view (new ideas are formed from taking in differing points of view).
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Still learning what to do here but hoping to get into the swing of thing soon.
Sorry for not being attentive to my friends
Few times, thanks to StumbleUpon i recieved more than 3.000 visits per day on website that usually has around 150.
StumbleUpon is great
I use to stumble my friend’s sites or their recommended sites. But I have never stumbled my friend profiles. I think I can start it right away…
Thanks a lot. I haven’t been able to do SMO. I haven’t been yet able to get traffic from these kinds of websites. That might be because of my own inactiveness in Social website. but whenver I submit very best stories, then also I normally don’t get next hit.
Now on, my first job is to house clean my friends. Thanks to you.
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