Some of the best things in life are stumbled upon by what we might think is by chance, but what if it’s by divine appointment? No matter what reason you think you came upon it, the point is you found something useful or inspiring. I have been an avid user of StumbleUpon for a few years now, although I have taken breaks from stumbling due to time constraints.
But nevertheless, I take my Stumbling quite seriously.
It was StumbleUpon that introduced me to the links I have listed to help homeschoolers. I simply set my interests for homeschooling and started browsing through the many sites that have been added to the StumbleUpon directory.
But aside from figuring out the many features that StumbleUpon has to offer, I want to talk about one thing in particular about StumbleUpon. It’s the people…the Stumblers. They are the key to this community.
When you stumble a site, blog post, video, etc the system takes note of your user name. The system then informs us who stumbled the link. Therefore, if you stumbled your own links, the community knows about it and it actually lowers your chances of getting a repeat stumble from them. It’s the unspoken ethic of Stumbling..no self promotions!
The community of Stumblers will report you as spam if they see you self promoting over and over again.
If you want help cross promoting your articles, then get in touch with a fellow Stumbler and agree to stumble each other’s posts from time to time, but don’t over stumble! And don’t stumble things that are low quality.
Out of all the stumbles I have sent in, the ones that get repeat stumbles from the SU community are ones that are truly helpful to them. For example, if I stumble a blog post that one of you has written that is rich with resources, links, and helpful information to homeschooling, then the SU Homeschool community is more likely to give it a thumbs up and it can build a momentum of traffic coming to your blog post.
Each week I look through my history of stumbles and if they have a low count of likes, that means the community hasn’t found them helpful. You can help increase the chances of getting your discovery seen by adding pertinent tags and a short review. Simply go to your discoveries page and use the edit option on the link you want to spruce up. You can also post your review on Facebook directly from the Stumble Upon review page to get more folks to see it.
The three categories I stumble the most (and search for while Stumbling) are photography, blogging, and homeschooling. I do take my stumbling seriously, so you can be confident that I’m sharing informative stumbles and I invite you to follow me on Stumble Upon. If I find your stumbles to be informative and resourceful, I will allow you to share stumbles with me through the toolbar. Which means you will be able to send Stumbles to me and I can give it a thumbs up as well.
Allowing your friends to share stumbles with you can really help you to build a community of cross promoting so the StumbleUpon community doesn’t see you as self promoting. But be sure to establish your circle of friends requirements. Agree to share with only serious stumblers who produce quality content that is worthy of stumbles.
Do not spam the StumbleUpon community! This isn’t a community to broadcast every single post you publish. You can use Twitter and Facebook pages for that. This SU community is about giving personal recommendations. Take it as seriously as you would allowing someone to use you as a job reference or a credit check. You want to be sure that your StumbleUpon reviews and stumbles will be of high quality.
With all this in mind, if you would like to cross promote stumbles with me to help your blog and help mine in return, all you need to do is this:
-Follow me on StumbleUpon
-Allow Shares through the SU toolbar (go to my profile and select ‘allow shares’)
-Send me a message (via my profile) to let me know you would like to cross promote.
-Be sure you are going to be a serious Stumbler.
-Don’t expect me to stumble every single post you create.
*I don’t Stumble giveaways, advertising/paid posts, devotions, or daily life posts.
Blog Posts that will get my attention the most:
-Articles that are rich with links to build community. This means you are promoting other bloggers in your articles.
-Resourceful articles to equip or educate
*Note: Please don’t spam me with your links. 1-2 requests a week are fine, but give me time to get to them. I usually spend one day a week on StumbleUpon, although I do stumble a few times a day. This means I stumble as I’m out surfing the Net, but I only check into my account once or twice a week.
I hope this has been helpful to you. If so, consider stumbling it! 
