Social media do take lots of time but
if you are seeing a return on your investment there, you are most
likely looking for more good social media sites to expand to. While
there isn't a shortage of social media sites, some of them are just a
waste of time and effort, so you'd better skip them and head to the
ones that work.
It is not that hard to find good social
media sites. For instance, Tumblr might not be as big as Facebook
or Twitter,
but it is a popular blogging and social networking site, so you might
want to explore it as well. Most of the tips for getting traffic from
social media sites in general apply to Tumblr as well but as you will
see, there are some specific ones that are tied just to it.
1 Post All Types of Media You Can
Tumblr offers multiple types of media
for you to post. These types include: text, photo, quote, link,
audio, and video and the best you can do is use them all. Of course,
if your content is not fit for a particular type of post, don't force
yourself to post that particular media ‐ i.e. if your products are
not visual, video and even photos might be an overkill. You can post
things that are directly related to your business and niche but you
can also post more fun stuff that will appeal to the general
audience.
2 Post Memes
One of the specific things about Tumblr
is that of all sorts of media, memes are especially popular. Memes
aren't very hard to create, so if you can't find cool ready-made
ones, take the time to create a couple of memes yourself, post them,
and see if they get the response you are hoping for. If they do,
invest more time and effort (or even consider hiring somebody else)
to create more memes.
3 Add Many and Relevant Tags
Tags on Tumblr are very important because this is the main channel
through which users will find you. This is why it makes sense to add
as many (but relevant) tags as possible. Look for variations and
synonyms of your target keywords, and include them all. It goes
without saying, though, that you shouldn't become a tag spammer.
4Create an Excellent Profile
As on all social media, your profile is
your business card. Therefore, you can't afford to have a messy
profile. You need to create an excellent profile so that other users
like you ‐ this increases the chance of getting more followers.
5 Be Active and Regular
If you don't already know that social
media do take time daily, now you will learn it. The key to getting
and keeping an active and loyal following on Tumblr is to be active
and loyal yourself. It's better to post a link a day than post 10
links at once after you have been gone for 10 days because in the
first case your followers will have the habit of checking the daily
stuff from you, while in the second case they will never know when
you will post and might miss your multiple posts.
6 Interact with Other Users
Another trick to becoming popular on
Tumblr is to interact with other users. Follow them, comment on their
posts, reblog their stuff ‐ this all helps to become a Tumblr star
whose posts are read by many users.
7 Reblog, Reblog, Reblog
When you find a good post from somebody else, don't hesitate to
reblog it. This way you are feeding your audience with new stuff,
while at the same time the original author will be thankful and might
reblog some your original posts in return.
8 Quality Matters More than Quantity
When we say to be active in posting and
interacting with other users, this doesn't mean you should spam and
nag ‐ it's better to post less frequently, if you have nothing
relevant to post than to post junk every day just for the sake of it.
You might think of filler posts (i.e. funny stuff that supposedly
appeals to everybody) and have some of these in stock, so you can
post them when you have nothing better but don't post meaningless
posts just to fill your daily quota.
9 Blog Around a Niche
While nobody limits your topics, for
best results, you'd better narrow down your choices to topics from
one niche. Tumblr is especially good, if you need niche traffic, so
if you have multiple niches, you'd better create separate profiles
for each of them than mix them all in one profile.
10 You Can Advertise Yourself but Do It with
Measure
Tumblr allows to place ads in your
posts, so you can advertise yourself, your site, or your products but
do it once a week at most; otherwise, you will irritate your
followers really soon and the effect you will achieve will be just
the opposite to what you want. Resist the temptation to post ad, if
the ad itself is not cool, or if the product/service you are
promoting is far from excellent. You need to do this only once and
many of your followers will drop you right away.
Tumblr doesn't have the huge number of
users of Facebook but the good thing is that your competition isn't
that huge either. If you have good stuff to post and you are
persistent, sooner or later you will get noticed. And who knows, even
if Tumblr isn't the first choice for many other webmasters, it might
turn out that for you personally it works like a charm. In fact this
is what matters most ‐ if it works for you, not for the whole
world.
