fansNow that we have explored who should be in your mutual friends group, its time to analyze who you should be a fan of, and who should be your fans. If you have just subscribed to my RSS feed, we are currently doing a series on StumbleUpon. Please checkout all my previous articles on this subject, so you can be up to date, and become a Stumble Pro

StumbleUpon Series Part 1 - A Commitment To Mastering StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon Series Part 2 - My True Intentions Are Not To Spam Or Game The System

StumbleUpon Series Part 3 - Where Does All That Traffic Come From?

StumbleUpon Series Part 4 - A Different Perspective On Your Friends And Fans

StumbleUpon Series Part 5 - Making The Right Friends In The Right Places

 

You Are a Fan Of

When I first start, the first day I signed up, I went out and befriended everyone, probably about 100 – 200 people. I assumed this was the way it worked. Wow, big NO, NO… The problem is that you are reaching out to way to many people, and your “what’s new” page gets flooded with a never ending massive list of new sites being reviewed. Hit the refresh button and you have a whole new page of reviews. Plus it makes you look really noobish.

I have analyzed many of the top stumbles, have spoken with some of them, have reviewed people with hundred and thousand of fans, and I noticed something. They were a fan of 1 – 10 people. I questioned why would stumblers be doing this?

Here are my Theories:

Attention – If you want to get the attention of a stumbler you can be their fan. It is best if you focus on just 1 or 2 of them. If you have the time, maybe up to 10 of them. If you are very active you will remain as their top fan and your profile picture will always be displayed at the bottom of their friend’s page. The idea behind this is branding. If someone sees something long enough, eventually they will like it. If they see your face on everything they are doing, they will notice you and eventually want you as their friend.

Reminder – You can use it as a reminder for yourself, to stay on top of the people you are targeting for friends. If you really want someone as your friend, you need to be reminded all the time of who they are so that you can frequently visit them, check out their stumbles and comment on their work.

The people you are a fan of should only be those stumblers of whom you want to get noticed by. Don’t make the mistake of adding everyone for no reason at all. If you, and them, are very active, then you will mutually want to be friends for many reasons.

Which Stumblers to Target?

Those who are very interested in the articles you want to read. Don’t just attempt to be a friend of a stumbler due to the amount of fans. If you want to move traffic then you want qualified traffic who will be interested in your articles.

Those who have at fan base of at least 200. These stumblers are influential on many other stumblers.

Those who are highly active, and stumble pages submitted by others. You want people who will thumb your articles since the more thumbs you get on the articles you discover, the stronger your StumbleUpon authority becomes. You don’t want sleepy Stumblers who don’t hit the thumb button.

Fans of Yours

Anyone and everyone should be your fan. You can’t control who wants to be your fan, so the more the merrier. Your fans get to see what you review, so you should be reviewing articles that you really want promoted into other friend groups.

Fans of yours are a mix of newbie’s who don’t know what they are doing, people who know what they are doing and really want to be your friend, and stumblers who simply enjoy your Stumbles and comments. Pay attention to your fans, because one of them could become your next best stumbling buddy. Pay attention to the ones who really want your friendship. These are the stumblers who are thumbing your articles, visiting your blog and emailing you for advice.

Getting Lots of Fans

Currently the best method of getting fans is passively. It requires no work on your part and people just keep asking to be your friend. How is that? Submit great content and provide great reviews. I will post another article on reviewing like a pro, but you can get about 5 – 10 new friends per day if you are discovering new articles all the time and then posting great informative reviews for others to read. People enjoy that you took the time, and they will be your friend with nothing in return.

The next method of getting fans requires a lot of work, but is able to get you a few fans per hour. If you have already stumbled and reviewed at least 100 pages you can do this trick. Again it is time consuming, and you don’t get many quality fans. I discovered this by accident. Simply visit as many profiles as possible. Just visit them. Why, because when you visit a profile a little red number shows up on the top of their page to let them know someone viewed their profile. Usually, they will check you out in return, and possibly become your friend. Again, these are usually people with 1 – 30 fans, and people who are not very savvy on StumbleUpon. I do not recommend this method. Use the passive method, because they came to you for what you offered. I just felt obligated to let you know of a little trick I discovered by accident.

Well, I bet you think, great that’s all there is too it. Now I am ready to be the next StumbleUpon Pro. Well you’re wrong. Look forward to these next topics about

How to give great reviews

How to get on the radar of your favorite stumblers

How to submit articles to StumbleUpon the professional way

A guide to StumbleUpon taxonomy.

How to configure your StumbleUpon bar

How to build up your StumbleUpon Authority.

Plus many more, ideas are coming in every day =)

If you really want to know more on one of these subjects, please comment so I can consider which article should come next.

Also, just as a reminder, you comment I follow. I have removed the nofollow attribute ;)

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