The 10 biggest mistakes people make on stumble upon

This is the first article in a series of articles I will be writing on the top 10 biggest mistakes people make on various social media websites. In the time that I’ve been on these various social media sites, I’ve noticed various trends that a lot of people follow depending on which social media site it is and in most cases, these trends are making their efforts fail miserably. The first social media website on my to-do list is Stumble Upon.

Stumble Upon is a great place to find and promote awesome content. Not only is the use of stumble upon very easy with their tool bar, the community is great (for the most part). There are some mistakes people are making on a daily basis though that could drastically effect the way they’re perceived and the effectiveness of any marketing efforts they’re making. Below are ten of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen people make on stumble upon.

No image of themselves

This is the first thing people use to identify you and if it’s not something recognizable (or even non existent for that matter), people will be turned off from viewing your profile and exploring the idea of being your friend or stumbling pages you’ve liked. Hell, I even just figured this out myself and changed my profile picture to make sure I don’t fall into this category any more.

No information in the about section

Right after the image, this is what most people look at next. This section doesn’t need to be a full bio of your whole life story, but let them know your name, what you do and any other tid-bits of information that will set you apart from the other stumblers out there.

Sending links to friends with no actual comment

How many times have you got the little pop up from your stumble upon tool bar that says “____ has sent you this page”? I’ve got this message a million times and I hate it as I’m sure the rest of you do too. How hard is it to at least write a quick thank you message and copy/paste it to everyone you’re sending the page to?

Stumbling only your own articles

This will not only keep people from interacting with you but it can also get you banned. Just ask Derek from Click Consultants (sorry Derek, I had to do it haha). Stumble upon is about being SOCIAL so please do not treat it as another place to spam your own content like we’ve all seen happen to myspace and other social media sites.

Only giving thumbs up and not reviewing

I don’t know if theres any issue with stumble upon itself for doing this, but I know that when I see a page get 30+ thumbs up but only 1-2 reviews, it sends a red flag to me that the content might not be the best in the world and that the original stumbler just got a lot of friends to give it thumbs up. Try to review as many as possible.

*quick tip: highlight a part of the article and click the review bubble in your stumble upon toolbar and it will automatically put that text into your review box.

Not being mutual friends with other stumblers

So you’ve got messages that 100 people have added you as a friend on stumble upon but you don’t know what to do next? ADD THEM BACK! Again, stumble upon is a social place and adding someone as a friend is the least you can do to show them that you’re human and increase your chances of gaining positive attention. Hell, I even got a couple web design deals through stumble upon just by adding friends back and talking with them.

Mass adding friends but only sending them spam

Another fault that is similar to sending links to friends with no actual comment. Whatever you do, do not believe that mass adding friends is going to gain you popularity within the community and push your content to the forefront. It just won’t happen. People hate spam, and if you’ve got 1,000 friends but no mutual friends, other stumblers are going to get the hint and avoid you like the plague.

Stumbling without consistency

If you’re trying to build a name for yourself and trying to build up your brand awareness, why would you neglect one of the most powerful things you can do on stumble upon? Consistent stumbling! Even if its only 10 stumbles per day, they add up over time and they let people know that you’re human, you’re around and you’re seeing what is out there.

Only stumbling pre-stumbled articles

You should be out there finding and discovering new articles for stumble upon. Add to the community with some value that YOU find instead of just clicking and stumbling articles that other people have already found and shown on stumble upon.

You don’t have me as a friend yet!

So this may not be a bad thing in everyones eyes, but to me, it hurts me deeply to know that you’re here reading this article and we’re not friends on stumbleupon yet. So, head on over to my Stumble upon Profile and add me as a friend. I promise to follow the rest of these guidelines and add you back.