Tumblr is a commonly used blog platform popular amongst teenagers and those in their 20s. It can be used to create a simple and is free, easily customization platform.
Think that Tumblr won’t bring in enough readers? Business Insider lists some of the top Tumblr blogs (which are Tumblr blogs without custom domains) that bring in as many as 1.2 unique visitors. Comedy Central’s official Tumblr has just under 500,000 unique visitors a month as an extension as their brand.
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Tumblr as a Stand Alone Platform
Tumblr can be a great alternative to Blogger or WordPress.com when you’re initially starting out your online blog, website, or online magazine. It provides a simple way to provide short, quick, content that primarily uses pictures (similar to Pinterest). A Tech Crunch article references that Tumblr blogs most likely what you think they are. They’re blogs that are “anti-blogs,” or blogs by people who became sick of trying to gain an audience but still want to get your content out there.
So why might you choose Tumblr to begin with? How To Make My Blog comments that Tumblr is great for testing out a limited, casual presence on the web. There’s a lot of users out there, and people are more likely to click follow to test your blog out versus other platforms (at least, that’s how I feel). It’s less of a commitment, with shorter, smaller posts. There’s also choices of different themes and a limited amount of HTML and CSS customization available.
Some of my favorite blogs are Tumblr-based blogs. There’s a lot of “Fitblrs” (fitness-based Tumblr bloggers) out there, one of my favorite being Back on Pointe. Not only is it a ballet-based blog, but she also produces her own unique workout calendars and plans in addition to blogging about her own personal fitness experiences and eating disorders.
Tumblr as an Additional Form of Social Media
While I don’t currently run my own stand-alone Tumblr blog, I do use it as an additional form of social media just as I do Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Currently I’m using Jetpack via self-hosted WordPress.org to automatically post photos with links to my main blog’s posts (WordPress.com has the exact same feature). Tumblr will also automatically import the tags you set via WordPress into Tumblr tags.
In the past, there was an option to post your RSS-feed to Tumblr directly, unfortunately, it’s no longer an option.
It wasn’t until I checked my Tumblr and I realized I had nearly 50 followers and dozens upon dozens of reblogs (more on this in a second) with relatively no effort. To me, Tumblr is a great way to reach potential younger audiences who may have not otherwise stumbled upon my WordPress blog, mostly because of Tumblr’s tagging system.
Tumblr’s Tagging System
Tagging on Tumblr works the same as any other blogging system’s tagging system with one additional feature: the ability to easily search and track the tags via your Tumblr Dashboard. So not only does it serve as a function to help boost SEO, it helps other users find you and helps you to find blogs with related content.
Using Tumblr’s search function you can search for any tag, whether it be a single word or multiple words. I like to use this function to easily find blogs with content similar to mine (often people will follow your blog back as well). Once you’ve searched for a tag, you can hit the “track” button to be able to follow that specific tag. This can be useful so you can easily check on the same tag again. To find your tracked tags, click in the search bar again. It will even show you how many new posts have been created with that tag (although it stops counting once it reaches ten).
Using Tumblr’s Dashboard
Tumblr’s Dashboard essentially serves as a feed reader, just as WordPress.com’s Reader function features. It makes it super easy to scroll through the blogs you follow and see their posts without having to individually visit each one of their blogs. In my opinion, Tumblr’s Dashboard feature works a lot better than WordPress.com’s, so because of this, it might be a better option to test out blogging and easily manage everything and find people to connect with.
Tumblr, like WordPress, will also allow you to schedule posts as well.
Reblogging + Liking Content
My absolutely favorite function of Tumblr is the ability to easily reblog other users posts and have them appear on your own blog. This can be a great way to have more content on your blog without having to create it yourself. The content easily links back to it’s creator as well.
In addition, this reblogging feature allows other bloggers to easily share your posts so that they can get more views as well and help attract followers.
The “like” function serves as sort of a combination of Facebook’s “Like” function (showing someone you like the content) and Twitter’s “Favorite” function (showing that you like something as well, but it also saves your favorites in a list). Liking a post is an easy was for readers to show they approve, but it’s also an easy way for you to save posts that you like within Tumblr to save for future use. I do this for future inspiration and posts I may want to reblog in the future.
Tumblr is an excellent platform for testing the blogging waters and also functions great as another form of social media.
How do you use Tumblr? Do you integrate it into your blogging social media strategy?
About Carson Derrow
