If you don’t have your Tumblr account yet, stop what you’re doing and go register now. It’s quick easy and should only take you a couple of minutes here’s the link: http://www.tumblr.com
If you already have your account set up I hope you’ve taken some time to explore, because in this post we’re going to talk about how you can tap into Tumblr’s power and the first step to doing that is finding followers, because we all know just starting a blog isn’t enough to guarantee you’ll be success.
As we touched briefly on in your last lesson, followers are other users that automatically see your posts on their dashboards without having to search for it, click on a link or a tag.
Another nice thing about having followers is that Tumblr makes it easy for them to like and share your content. It also keeps track of how many times a specific post has been liked, shared or commented on, so you can see what’s working and what’s not.
Generally, people follow your blog because they’re interested in what you have to say or offer. From a marketing standpoint, this is extremely powerful because your followers represent a captive target audience.
As with blogs, forums and other social networks, one of the best ways to start building a list of followers on Tumblr is to start following blogs in or closely related your niche.
There are a couple of different ways to do this:
- You can search for specific tags (keywords) or blog names by typing them directly into the search bar at the top of your dashboard.
This is a great way to find people that are posting content in your niche, so that you can follow them. You will notice that once you type a search term into the box you will be presented with a list of popular tags. You will also have the ability to track tags. This can be a great time-saver because when you track a tag it will be added to convenient drop-down list for easy access.
- You can find them by clicking on the “Find blog” tab on the right-hand side of your dashboard, and then exploring by category.
You’ll notice the Spotlight tab is displayed by default. It displays all of the popular and notable blogs according to category. You can change the category by clicking on any of the topics on the right-hand side of the page.
There is also a people you know tab. It gives you the ability to connect to your Gmail and FaceBook accounts, so that you can search through your contacts to find friends or colleagues that already use Tumblr.
The last tab is simply a list of people you are already following. From there you can enter in the direct URL username or e-mail a particular user you would like to follow you can also un-follow blogs that no longer hold your interest or suit your needs.
Keep in mind that the same rules of social marketing apply, you follow popular blogs, like their posts, share their content and most of the time they would respond in kind. By doing this you can naturally grow your list of followers.
More About Tumblr
What makes Tumblr a little bit different than other blogging platforms is it’s user friendly suite of editing tools located conveniently at the top of the user’s home page. Will talk more about that later.
First, let’s talk about what makes a Tumblr such a beneficial marketing tool. While it’s true that FaceBook and Twitter have been racking up hundreds of millions of users and gaining worldwide recognition over the last several years, it’s smaller social networking sites like Tumblr that have been slowly accumulating a large and very dedicated user base.
In fact, Tumblr recently hit a huge milestone marker, hosting over 100 million blogs across the network with an accumulated 45 billion posts. As you’re reading this I’m sure that number is increasing rapidly. However , even with numbers this staggering it is often overlooked and underutilized, but from a business standpoint it’s time to stop ignoring it and start taking advantage of what it has to offer.
If you haven’t jumped on the Tumblr bandwagon yet you may want to start thinking seriously about it, especially if you are a content provider looking for additional channels to market your products and services on.
This sites inherent shareability attracts young, tech savvy users and makes it easy to organically expand your audience base as well as generate a nice viral buzz for your business.
Another thing that makes Tumblr so powerful is that it’s an image-based platform, making it perfect for displaying product images and descriptions. You may be thinking what’s so great about that, other social networking sites do that too?
The real power behind posting on this platform is that everything you post on your Tumblr blog is automatically displayed on the dashboard of every member that follows, you with a convenient link back to your sales page.
Yes, other social networking sites do this as well, but Tumblr makes it much faster and easier by providing the easy editing tools I mentioned earlier.
If you don’t already have a Tumblr account you should definitely sign up for one as soon as possible and then you will see what I mean. You can find the editing tools (represented by large easy to recognize icons) at the top of your homepage in your dashboard.
From there you can instantly add text, photos, quotes, audio, video, links and even chat. Making it very user-friendly. In fact, you can drag and drop up to 10 images to create a unique ready to share photo set directly from your computer or mobile device taking a lot of the hassle out of sharing multiple images.
Tumblr Pointers
Ok, let’s go over a few things, so that you can learn how to take full advantage of everything that Tumblr has to offer. Now we are going to talk about posting and editing content, so that you can keep your visitors engaged and entertained.
As we know, Tumblr allows users like us to post content to our blogs in a mixture of different media formats, including text, pictures, audio and video.
Tumblr takes quick and easy posting to a completely new level by providing you with simple to use drag-and-drop editing tools located at the top of your dashboard. As you may have noticed, each individual icon has its own functionality aspects.
For an example:
- Text
The text editor allows you to format your posts, bold headings, include bullet points, include images and even use HTML. It also has a spell-checker and advance settings that are located under the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner of the editor that allow you to create a custom URL for your post, use a content source URL, and check whether or not you want to let people reply to your post with a photo.
*You’ll also notice a publish button in the lower left-hand corner but we’ll talk more about that soon.
- Photo
The photo editor gives you the freedom to drag and drop images directly from your computer or mobile device. You can also click on the camera icon in the center of the editor and the file upload box will appear, allowing you to upload photos from your hard drive. You can also take or insert a photo from a URL.
Another fun feature is photosets. They allow you to share up to 10 images in the same post. You can also choose from different layout options, as well as drag and drop your photos to change their order.
Quotes, links, chat, audio and video have similar features making it extremely easy to share content in multiple media formats.
The best way to learn how to use all of these features is to experiment and as I mentioned in your last lesson, if you need help you can always visit the help center by clicking on the question mark icon at the top of the page.
- Publishing
When it comes to publishing your content there are a few different options available, including publish now, add to queue, publish on, save as draft, private and preview on blog. These publishing features give you complete control over your content.
For instance, if you choose add to queue it will stagger your posts over a period of hours or days, depending on how many posts you add to the queue. You add up to 300 posts to the queue at a time and they will automatically drip feed into your blog until the queue is empty.
This is great if you’re planning on a vacation, for keeping your visitors entertained over a period of time and for search engine optimization, because we all know how the search engines love fresh content. Keep in mind that once a post is put into the queue it can’t be stopped so be sure it’s ready for the public eye.
You can also schedule posts to be published later or save them as a draft until you’re ready to edit or publish them.
If you mark a post as private, no one else will be able to see it won’t be visible on your blog, only you other admin’s and members will be able to view it.
The preview on blog option allows you to see exactly what your post will look like after it’s published on your blog, so that you can be sure everything is just right before making it public. The same rules of publishing and social sharing apply to your Tumblr blog you should always do your best to make sure that you keep your readers engaged and entertained. You can do this by providing them with informative, insightful and relevant content related to the topic of your blog.
Don’t be afraid to show off your personality keep the content fresh, honest and engaging. Make sure to post regular updates, even if it’s simply re-blogging another users’ posts, because if you don’t keep things interesting your followers can get bored and move on.
Tumblr Tips
Let’s go over some quick tips and techniques that you can use to get the most out of your Tumblr account.
- Post on the go
As we know, Tumblr really wants to make it easy for users to update their blogs consistently, so they provide you with a variety of tools to make that possible. For instance, you can update your blog with a message, photo, audio, or video clip directly from your e-mail account smart phone or simply by leaving a voicemail.
To use your e-mail account to post a message you’ll need a special e-mail address provided by Tumblr you can find it under the settings tab on your dashboard.
To post from your smart phone you simply have to install the Tumblr app, it’s available for iPhones, iPads and android devices. You can download it directly from your phone, the iTunes Store or Google play or by going to the Tumblr app’s page at http://www.tumblr.com/apps, and then following the simple setup instructions to access your account.
You can also phone in a post by dialing 1-866-584-6757, and leaving a voicemail message that your followers will be able to hear within seconds after you record it. This is a great way to make audio posts.
- Bookmark it
Install Tumblr’s handy Bookmarklet. This will allow you to quickly blog from any webpage you happen to be visiting. To install the bookmarklet simply go to http://www.tumblr.com/apps and drag the “Share on Tumblr” button directly to your browser toolbar.
- Lively discussions
Tumblr is a very interactive community and lively discussions are one of the best parts of tumbling, so it’s important to do your part to keep discussions active and entertaining. The first step to this is ensuring that other members can comment on your blog.
To do this you must enable commenting for each individual blog you have. From the dashboard, simply click on the name of your blog and check the appropriate boxes that will allow replies. You can also let people ask questions and submit posts.
Another thing you can do is take the time to visit and comment on the blogs of people who have liked, re-blogged or commented on your posts.
- Take shortcuts
You may be surprised to discover that Tumblr has included some built-in shortcuts that many users don’t even know exist. These shortcuts can help make Tumblr tasks even faster and easier than working directly from the dashboard.
Here’s a quick list that you may find handy:
- Press J will move forward through your posts.
- Press K will move backwards through your posts.
- If you are using J or K to scroll to a photoset or video, press the spacebar to view the post.
- Press Shift + R to quickly re-blog any post you are viewing.
- Press Shift + E will instantly add a post to your Queue.
- Pressing L will like the current post.
- Pressing N will allow you to see any notes related to the post.
- Pressing Z + Tab will quickly switch between the dashboard and your blogs.
Tumblr is an extremely powerful combination of blogging and social networking site and during this course I’ve tried to touch base on some of its most powerful features. However, we’ve really only scratched the surface. If you take the time to explore on your own you will find a wide variety of tips and techniques that you can use to enhance your own experience with Tumblr.
Customizing Your Tumblr Account
So, let’s talk more about setting up and customizing your Tumblr account. We will also go over some of the special features you can use to help make your blog really stand out.
You may have noticed when you first set up your Tumblr account that they gave you a unique URL that included your username. This is your primary blog. They also give you the option to create multiple (secondary) blogs from within your account.
All you have to do is click the drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner to create a new blog.
- There are some differences between your primary and your secondary blogs.
For instance you can only follow, like, reply, ask, and submit from your primary blog, not from one of your secondary blogs. However, other users can still like and share the content from your secondary blog with ease.
On the other hand, your secondary blogs gives you more control and flexibility by allowing you to create group blogs with multiple users that can create and manage content. You can also password protect the content in your secondary blogs for added privacy.
Tumblr also gives you the ability to customize your URL so that it reflects your business name or the topic. For instance, if you are posting content about tennis you could choose Tennisrocks.tumblr.com as your URL.
You can also use your own custom domain name, so that you can seamlessly incorporate your blogs into your existing business. To do this click on the settings (gear icon) at the top of your dashboard, choose the blog you want to update and check the box that says use a custom domain and follow the steps to configure and test your new domain. The process is very simple and self-explanatory you don’t even have to change your name servers.
When it comes to customizing your Tumblr blog all of the basics apply like choosing a theme, including a good description of your business along with a professional photo in your description. All of this can be done from the settings tab on your dashboard.
- Pages
Similar to WordPress, Tumblr allows you to create pages. These are great for general content like your company bio, about me or contact information. To create a page go to settings and click on the customize button in the themes section, from there you can add as many pages as you like. You can create pages with standard or custom layouts, depending on the purpose of the page. The standard layout uses the same design as your blog while the custom layout allows you to tailor exactly how you want the page to look.
- Tags
Tags make it easier for people to find your content, so you should always be sure to include them whenever you make a new post. You will find the tag field form right below your post editor. They also make it easier for you to link to specific topics on your blog.
For example if you are writing about tennis and have several posts related to tennis rackets, you would tag those posts with the word “rackets” and then you can directly link to that topic like this: http://your_username.tumblr.com/tagged/rackets and your reader will be redirected to a page that lists all of your posts about that topic.
This is just a brief overview of some of the different things you can do to customize your Tumblr blog. There are many other things you can do like redirect pages, link your pages to specific tags, edit the HTML of your theme, as well as other advanced features available.
If you need more details about any of these topics, be sure to check the help files conveniently located under the question mark tab on your dashboard or drop me a note. I’ll be glad to help.
You should also watch this Tumblr Tutorial 2013 by Nicki rayraynicki on YouTube:
More reading:
As the 32nd most popular website in the world, Tumblr is a big opportunity. But you can’t approach it as you would other marketing strategies. So if you’re not using Tumblr as part of your marketing efforts, you’re missing a very large boat. Here are tips for marketing your business on Tumblr by Neil Patel, co-founder of the Web analytics firm KISSmetrics.
Due to the recent growth in Tumblr, its ease of use and wide-ranging possibilities, the blogs represented below are offered as inspiration. Recommended introductory and how-to resources for Tumblr are listed at the bottom of the article. While Tumblr may speak to the issue of brevity on blogs, this post is a far cry from a brief post. In fact, it’s exceedingly long—hopefully, all the better to learn from!
If you are a marketer, then it’s probably second nature for you to sit down with your team to create a marketing plan for any new venture like Tumblr. After the marketing plan, your next step is to create a great Tumblr presence by coming up with a great name. And in the ecosphere of Tumblr, where users are younger and more fickle, a great name can make or break your marketing efforts.
Read more: http://www.money-making-portal.com/tumblr-marketing-for-the-marketer-with-the-marketing-plan/#ixzz2ZVJTAP7N
