StumbleUpon Etiquette - Is it Okay to Stumble Your Own Posts?
Today’s question comes from Rory at Hamelife.
JUST ASK - Rory asks about StumbleUpon
Is it blogging etiquette to “stumble” your own articles, or is it hoped that someone else does it for you? I’m not sure what the best way is (though I know there are no rules for this kind of thing.)
I have the toolbar installed . I’m just a bit self-conscious about stumbling my own material. Feel free to tell me to “get over it”. I’ll be happy to. 
My Response
Hi Rory - Good news! It is perfectly fine to “stumble” your own articles. In fact, it makes good sense to do so. However, I would issue a few cautions/suggestions.
1. Only “stumble” posts you think are “stumbleworthy” - i.e. if someone stumbles upon your post, and it is not interesting or useful, you are wasting their time. You only have a few seconds to get a reader’s attention.
A thumbs down is not good. A negative review is worse. I know we can’t control people’s opinions, but the post is an advertisement in a sense for would be visitors for your blog, so make it a good one. Make it count.
2. Don’t only “stumble” your own posts, and don’t do it too often. This is spamming, and is very obvious.
3. “Stumble” other excellent posts, particularly in a related area. This is like linking. Those people will visit to check out your blog. They may become a regular visitors.
4. As you say it is ideal if others “stumble” your posts. Encourage readers to “stumble” your posts by installing a StumbleUpon button on your site, either at the bottom of each post or a “Vote for Us” button. There is also a “Share” Wordpress plugin. Or you can just ask them. How about it? Anyone want to “stumble” this post? 
5. You can also ask networking colleagues to “stumble” a specific key article you really want to highlight or drive traffic to.
6. And just a general Stumbleupon tip for anyone with a new blog - While the temptation to get instant traffic looms large, don’t “stumble” your own articles until you have something to show. You have to instil confidence in the reader. No one wants to visit an empty car lot, or a construction site, and if they do, they are unlikely to be impressed.
The StumbleUpon Bonus
On the other hand, if readers “stumble” onto your site because of a specific topic or article, and look around, they may find other articles they like and “stumble” these. Remember the bonus is that a reader who finds you through StumbleUpon is already StumbleUpon savvy, so they can be among your best advocates.
Clicking the thumbs up is a bit like “impuse buying”. Readers are shopping around for useful or interesting information. “Stumbling” your article is a way of recommending it to others. It’s also a way of a reader adding to their StumbleUpon generated list of posts they want to revisit.
Ebay & The Future for StumbleUpon
Hope this helps Rory. Welcome to the world of Stumbleupon. 2.3 million fellow StumbleUpon users is a lot of potential power for your blog or site. I guess one way to look at StumbleUpon is as a cross between a search engine and social networking.
They are currently in talks with Ebay for a possible $75 million buyout, with Google as a previous financial stakeholder. Google is going to introduce something similar with their toolbar, so that says something about the power of StumbleUpon.
How to Leverage StumbleUpon to Give Your Site a Boost
Here are a few useful StumbleUpon links with ideas for increasing StumbleUpon traffic and leveraging the power of StumbleUpon for your blog or site.
How to Increase StumbleUpon Traffic
A Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon - How To Build Massive Traffic
More Reasons Why I Love StumbleUpon
Why StumbleUpon is the King of Social Bookmarking
StumbleUpon: A Whole Lot of Fun
Over To You - Please Add Your Suggestions for Rory & Other Stumblers
Dear Readers - I hope you will help. Do you have any suggestions or tips about StumbleUpon?
Please leave them in the comments.
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It can be about any topic related to growing your writing business - from wayward apostrophes, to types of writing, business, blogging, sustaining motivation - whatever. If I don’t know the answer or have suggestions, I will most likely know someone who does. We will at least try to point you in the right direction so you can do some more reflection or research yourself.
Just Ask your question via the Grow Your Writing Business contact form. The subject line should say JUST ASK Yvonne Russell, so I don’t delete it as spam. I will email you for further details if needed, and answer here on the blog. I’d love to hear from you. Remember the question can have anything at all to do with growing your writing business.
Yvonne - I haven’t even read through this post yet and I’m commenting on it!
This quick response just ROCKS me. Thank you so much, and I hope it is helpful for many others.
Right, let’s get back to reading it…
Hi Yvonne, great post since I have been looking into doing Stumpleupon myself. Keep up the good work.
Mike
Hi Mike - Hope StumbleUpon works for you. It’s certainly worth a try. I’ve seen the results for myself (although a modest increase compared to the thousands of hits some sites are reporting), so it all looks positive.
Let me know how you get on, and if you pick up any tips or hints you can share. We’re all in this together, right?
Great post! I should sign up for StumbleUpon. I like Rory’s balanced attitude too. I can see where StumbleUpon may overtake Digg (if they haven’t already).
Thanks Laura - I can recommend at least trying it. I signed up about a year ago, had some limited success, and promptly forgot about it. My recent traffic spike has me on the StumbeUpon bandwagon again. It seems StumbleUpon has come of age and is becoming the social media tool of choice. LOL.
I also respect Rory’s outlook too, as you need a balanced approach.
Thank you, Yvonne. An extremely helpful article, with great links as well.
In a way I sort of guessed what the answer would be: Yes you can “stumble” your own articles, but…, and this is, of course, the balanced route. So now I’ll go from not “stumbling” any articles, to “stumbling” the occasional ripper. And I like your encouragement to “stumble” other people’s stuff, and generally get into a “stumbly” frame of mind. (Okay, that might have been one “stumble” word-variation too many.)
Thanks, again.
Thanks, Yvonne, for the great post and explanation of StumbleUpon…and the additional links.
Even though it’s complete fine especially if it is really stumble worthy, I believe that practice is like… gaming the system. Pick The Brain have wrote something about it.
Sorry, ignore my previous comments. I take back what I had said before but I wish to add this statement:
“Once I have created a new blog post for example I will submit the URL to StumbleUpon using the toolbar, it is perfectly fine to promote your own website providing you don’t overdo it. This will help to increase the amount of my webpages I have present in the StumbleUpon database and improve the likelihood of my site being ’stumbled upon’.” from SEOptimise.
Sorry for the confusion everyone!
I see… but I have another question: is it OK to stumble YOUR site? I mean each and every post you write. Yes, Yvonne: You!
Now to explain: a spammer doesn’t need to submit his/her own sites over and over again. A spammer can hurt your site by “overdoing it” too. So what do you think about that? Any ideas how to stop me from stumbling your pages fervently? (Nah, I’m not a spammer, but you’ve got to admit it: I made you think.
)
Mig - You are always making me think….
I don’t support spamming of any type. Spamming StumbleUpon with your own site or someone else’s is the same thing. If I stumble my own posts (which I haven’t done yet), it would be because I am saying “Hey, I think you will find this useful.” and sharing it more widely. The same approach holds if I stumble someone else’s post.
As for deliberately stumbling every single post from someone’s site, I think you could complain to StumbleUpon (if they don’t contact you first). Not sure if there are forums for StumbleUpon where such things are discussed. I guess this is a caution to check your StumbeUpon account from time to time to see the activity on it, which you would be doing anyway to see what has been popular.
Of course, all of this applies equally to any of the other social networking sites like Digg etc. etc. The bottom line is respect, balance and community…. and good “stumbleworthy” posts. Thanks for making me think a bit more about this Mig (as always).
What do others think?
Yes! respect, balance and community! That’s what social networking is all about and many people seem to fail to understand this. Are you aware of the “Ninjas?” You find them here I can hardly wait to hear what you think about such practices!
Well, you certainly do open my eyes…
The “Ninjas” use the term “Stealth Marketing”. I guess this is why I’ll never be rich, famous or have a PR of 1. While I am a business person, maybe I’m not very internet marketing savvy to have this view, as I definitely do want my blog to grow, and to use it as a professional tool for my writing.
I prefer to do it the natural way. I did take part in a Technorati Favorites exchange, but even that I’m not too sure about. I prefer more natural things like good posts, commenting, developing community, but also being part of creative collaborative projects like group writing projects etc.
The Ninja pay and “assignment” system was quite an eye opener. I think gaming the system to that extent is unethical and unfair to others. Maybe that’s how the big wide world of social networking really operates, and I’m just being naive?? I hope not, as I think social networking has a lot of positive benefits.
If other readers want to check out Mihaela’s link in the comment above, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I’ve stumbled my blog (just to get it in play) but never any posts. It was surprising just how many visitors I got that way. I doubt I got many return visitors, but it does give a one-time boost.
Hi KC - I love your phrase “just to get it in play”. I think you would be surprised about return visitors. Stumbling and being stumbled is a great way to discover new blogs.
Here is what happened. I wanted to stumble my own post today and like one of your readers, I thought ‘is this right?’ Well thank you. This answered the question and gave me insight. It is like saying ’stumble at your own risk.’ Makes a lot of sense.
Right upto the point. I would suggest to build a network of friends first and then you can see them stumbling your posts.
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