By now you have probably heard and maybe experienced how StumbleUpon can skyrocket your Blog traffic and bring you pageviews you never thought possible. But with this surge of massive quantity comes the harsh reality that the Stumblers visiting stay on your site long enough to blink; moving to their next destination with a furious and fast click of the mouse. I have found some steps to take that can add value to your stumbling and bring you even more traffic; the type that linger and read your content.  Not only did my monthly pageviews jump from 8,000 to 100,000, folks started leaving more comments, checking out other pages on my Blog and referring me to their friends and followers.

Two words sum up what I started doing. GOT SOCIAL.  Below are a few tips I hope add more value to your Stumbling and overall Social Networking experience.

1. Allow Shares to Your Toolbar

If you are not letting people share to your toolbar, you are missing out on a great way to start developing some strong relationships and therefore missing out on some shares yourself. When someone shares to my toolbar, I think of it as a compliment. Not only do I take the time to review the share, if it is the stumbler’s Blog they are sharing, I make it a point to leave a comment and click around their site to see more. I then send them a reply, let them know why I liked the share and thank them for giving me the opportunity to give it a good review. Taking the time to do this social activity has paid off tremendously.

2. Review Profiles Not Just Shares

Take 5-10 minutes out of your Stumbling to review Followers. I have gotten into the habit of providing a sentence or two every evening on 3-5 Followers profiles with a positive review. Be specific and honest. If you follow someone who Blogs about cooking, let folks know “I love this Stumbler for her fantastic recipe shares, and because she takes the time to share her cool discoveries too.”

3. Socially Connect with Your Reviewers (especially power stumblers) Believe me, you want to connect with power stumblers, and you want to be a power stumbler! A great way to find power stumblers that are right in front of you is to check who is liking and reviewing your posts. Start following these people, and most importantly send them a note saying something like “I am glad you liked the Owl Video I posted. I am now following you, please feel free to share to my toolbar; Cheers!” This small step will bring you big wins. (do this with folks who are not PowerStumblers too!)

4. Find Your Triberr Friends on StumbleUpon

Dino recently posted about StumbleUpon on Triberr that inspired me to post to all my Tribes with my SU username; inviting people to stumble and share with me. I have two new friends as a result so far. Soon after, another post went up about StumbleUpon in the Bonfire section and two to three others (not in any of my Tribes) listed their SU usernames…. I am now connected with them and we all share to each other’s toolbar as well.

StumbleUpon is such a wonderful traffic surge tool, but I believe it is easy to get lost in the monotonous clicking, clicking, clicking. The value of networking is huge; not taking advantage of the socializing in social networking is leaving opportunity on the table.

As always, feedback and questions are welcome in the comments section below. Stumble On! -Lisa

The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.  Robert Cushing