This is Part Five in our blog series on How to Use StumbleUpon to Grow Your Business. If you missed the last post, you can read it here.
In this post I’m going to walk you through the process of setting up your own StumbleUpon account at StumbleUpon.com.
STEP ONE: Register
Registering involves providing StumbleUpon with a little bit of information including your browsing preferences. Don’t worry, it’s easy. You check off topics of interest to you when setting up your profile. Once you’ve done this, the database will then recognize you as someone who is interested in these specific topics and provide you with pages people have rated positively in those categories. It’s kind of like a head start 
Although it may sound a bit like a search engine, it’s really not. There are no complicated algorithms to try and figure out in order to have your own pages rank well in the database. As a social bookmarking website, StumbleUpon simply shows you pages that other people with similar interests have highlighted in their searches. For instance, if you enjoy reading about politics, then you’ll be shown political-related sites.
STEP TWO: Install the Toolbar.
Once you’ve registered, you’ll be given the chance to download a toolbar to use in your browser. This isn’t critical, but it does make StumbleUpon more convenient and fun to use.
You’ll use the toolbar to rate pages, articles, videos, etc. with just a click of the mouse. This is how new pages get added to the site’s database.
STEP THREE: Surf and Stumble
Like most social networking tactics, you have to give in order to receive. The first thing that you’ll want to do is look around the sites that have already been Stumbled that are in your niche, and give some reviews and thumbs up to those that you enjoy.
STEP FOUR: Add Some Friends
Add a few friends – just like you would with Twitter or Facebook. Find people who are Stumbling topics in your niche – or who you just like what they are reading and add them as friend. You can also search for existing friends to see what they are StumblingUpon, too. This is where the “social” part comes in.
STEP FIVE: Stumble some more, and review a few sites you find interesting (including your own!).
Like I mentioned in the last post, the most important thing to note when getting started with StumbleUpon is that you’ll want to only Stumble sites that are interesting and valuable – so don’t just start giving your own blog a ‘thumbs up’ on every single page. That’s essentially spamming.
The other important thing to note is that you’ll want to stumble a site’s internal pages that are interesting, not just the home page of a few sites. Click ‘thumbs up’ on the interior article pages that you enjoy the most. That makes the experience more targeted and authentic.
See, wasn’t that easy?
Tomorrow in Part Six of this series, we’ll talk about some other things you can do to increase your chances for success with StumbleUpon. Join us!
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