Okay, But Where Do I Start?

Dear Friends,

I have an apology to make. I’ve been giving you hints and tips for using StumbleUpon and never thought that maybe you don’t have StumbleUpon installed yet. So, first things first, run, don’t walk, to StumbleUpon, sign up, and download the toolbar. (Think I could throw more cliches into that sentence without it sounding ridiculous?)

Okay, so you’ve signed up at SU, you’ve got the toolbar installed, you’ve added a picture of yourself (or anything that’s different than the ipody looking temp avatars SU gives), you’ve even read (or watched) my instructions on how to set up your toolbar, and now you’re wondering what to do next.

Well, the first thing I’d recommend doing is to give yourself a thumb up. I’m serious! You like yourself, right? You like your Stumble page, and want others to visit? Then apply that thumb button to your SU page! You can even write a comment if you’d like, it’s really not a bad idea, thanking others for visiting your site and leaving a comment. Your review of your own site will always appear at the top of your review page, so that anyone who looks will see it.

The next thing I’d recommend doing is to make a couple posts. Find a picture or a website you like and share it. (Here’s how to add a picture to your page.) When you start getting visitors, you want something interesting on your blog so that they’ll stop for a bit. Hopefully they will give you a thumb up also, which will start bringing even more people to visit.

After you have a few items on your page, I suggest visiting other stumblers some. You can do this several ways. You can see which stumblers are online now, you can use your toolbar and set it to show you other stumblers, then click on the stumble button, or if you already know a stumbler, you can visit their page and click on their friends list. I love doing the last one, visiting friends of friends of friends…it’s like watching the 6° theory in action.

Oh, and while you’re visiting, don’t forget to pop over to my page and say “Hi.” I try to return visits, but don’t always get to everyone before the list changes (you’re shown your 10 most recent visitors), so if I don’t stop by after your visit, please forgive me, and feel free to come by whenever.

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