Have you ever “TwitPic’d” something?
What about sent a link to a YouTube video out on Twitter?
If you’re like most people you’re probably saying “YEAH, plenty of times!” Well, YouTube and TwitPic would like to thank you for building their site traffic and making them a ton of money. But that’s the problem… You don’t even get a thank you from those sites and you’re doing all their branding and traffic generation for them. It get’s worse…
Some of those really viral videos you are sharing are not only making YouTube some money but also the revenue share partner… Where’s your part of the revenue share? You drove the traffic! This is exactly why I’ve started adding Tumblr.com into my social marketing toolbox. I’ll tell you how I’m using it in just a minute…For any of you who may not have heard of Tumblr, it’s a free blogging platform kind of like LiveJournal.com or WordPress.com.
Where it’s different though is in it’s ultra ease of use, dedication to simplicity, and ridiculously light weight. On average, it takes me about 30 seconds to 3 minutes to make a blog post on Tumblr. I’m not really using it to write my main content so it’s not like I am writing gigantic posts. It’s more for my own personal branding. I post videos I like, pictures I’ve taken, my opinions on blog posts I’ve read, audio recordings of insightful thoughts I’ve had, and links to cool resources that I find. For me it’s almost like an extreme form of social bookmarking. Where you are not just saving links to web pages you like but thoughts, pictures, sound bites, and videos as well.
The unseen benefit is that if you do it right you can get it to rank for your name in the search engines aka “reputation management” and controlling your reputation online is a huge part of being a successful businessman. What I wanna do right now is tell you a little bit about how you can get started using Tumblr and how it can fit into your current plan. You might be thinking “OH GREAT, here’s another website I have to check” but I promise to make this one of the simplest and most long term useful additions to your social marketing strategies.
Tumblr 101
Obviously, the first thing you’ll need to do is visit Tumblr.com and create your account. I knew straight away that this was going to be easy when I saw their home page… Finally, a website that understands the value of our time!
You’ll see it’s quite easy and there really aren’t even any extra buttons you can press to get this step wrong. Just give them your email address and a password you would like to use and you’re good to go. In about 10 seconds your account will be created and you can either start posting to your “tumblog” with the default theme or choose one of the many previously designed themes. You can even design your own themes using their documentation and some basic HTML/CSS.
Once you’ve chosen a theme you can customize it with social media buttons, Disqus comment system, mybloglog badges, and any other widgets by just pasting in the codes in the right places. If you don’t know the right places to paste the code, no worries, because it’s a $10 – $15 project at sites like Scriptlance or RentaCoder. However, most themes are well commented and tell you where to paste the codes.
Ok You’ve Created Your Account… Now What?
As soon as you login for your first time you’ll see the “dashboard” and while it’s pretty self explanatory I’ll explain some of the major items you’ll need to be familiar with…
Arrow 1: This is your main control panel. Simply choose which type of post you’d like to make and you’ll be taken to a customized entry form for that kind of post. Very simple do this then do that kind of form. For example the video form says “paste your embed code here” or “upload your video here” then has a box labeled description – for your description.
Arrow 2: This is like your stats panel. You’ll see the address to your tumblog, your tumblarity score, any drafts you have saved, and a button to customize your theme.
Circled in red: This is the famous “reblog” feature and “like” button. Click the reblog button on any Tumblr post you like and it instantly gets added to your tumblog – Like a retweet for blogs. The like button (heart symbol) means you liked someones blog post aka faves.
What’s Tumblarity?
Tumblarity is your Tumblr activity. If you post something everyday and people are reblogging/liking your posts then your tumblarity score will go up. The higher it goes the more visible your blog gets in the community.
Your Posts & Other Bloggers Posts Will Rotate Here For Others To See
Ideally if you just blogged daily on a hot topic with good articles you could eventually be getting plenty of traffic to your blog from the built in Tumblr community. That’s not what we’re using it for though so tumblarity score isn’t super important, I never even look at it.
How Does Tumblr Fit Into My Overall Business?
Right about now you might be wondering why you should have two blogs? I’m not asking you to have two blogs though or at least I don’t view it that way in my mind.
My WordPress blog is my home base. It’s where I post about my topic to my niche. It’s where I run my business. However, sometimes my likes and dislikes don’t fit in with the topic I blog about.
For example, if I’m a dog breeder blogging about breeding but I’m also a black belt Jujitsu practitioner then my Youtube video about my first win with a triangle choke won’t go over well with my dog breeding audience.
Or maybe my kid just got an award and I want to post the picture online. Instead of posting it on my dog breeding blog where it would stick out like a sore thumb or posting it to Twitpic which does nothing of value for my personal brand… I post it to my tumblog instead.
If you don’t care about personal branding then forget about Tumblr, you don’t really need it. WordPress is by far the better blogging solution. If you do care about personal branding though then Tumblr is the fastest, lightest, and easiest way to share with the world the things you like or don’t like – personally. Giving you the incredible benefit of first posting that picture or Youtube video to your tumblog and then spreading the link out on Twitter or Facebook.
Meaning you are building up your brand instead of Twitpic’s, YFrogger’s, or Youtube’s brands. This lets you get another RSS hook into people or show them your other interests/sites. Plus, with some basic SEO skills like watching what keywords you use in the URL and title you can get Tumblr to show up for your name on the front page of Google.
When people do a search for you on Google – WHICH THEY ARE DOING – they will find your tumblog as one of those results.
What Do I Share On Tumblr?
It’s not a topic focused blog, it’s a life collage of the things you like and dislike. A place to send people to see your favorite things in life without losing that traffic to other websites.
This is where people learn about you as the person instead of you as the business owner, which is not only the key to social media but the key to sales as well. As we all know that people buy based on whether they like the person doing the selling or not. Tumblr helps you make that personal connection with your audience.
So get out there and start sharing your life!
Photo cred: lindsay huffman
