Tumblr marketing tips

Tumblr is a great tool for promoting your brand and reaching out to new customers. The site is a nice mix of art, business, personal branding and community and we think there’s a ton to be gained from it. If you’re looking to promote your blog, Tumblr might just be the perfect place for you.

Use Tumblr’s default follow button

To add an official “Follow on Tumblr” button to your site, visit the official Tumblr blog for developers. You will be able to select the language, size and style of your button. Any further customization of the button can be done with CSS or static images.

Don’t worry if you don’t know how to do either of those things. Tumblr has created automatic code snippets that you can simply copy and paste into your theme’s HTML section by pressing the “Edit theme” link in the customization menu. This option is only available if you’re using a custom theme (the default themes have no place to paste code).

Set up a custom domain name

Now that you’ve got your Tumblr blog set up, it’s time to get a custom domain. A custom domain allows you to create a shorter and more personal URL. For example, if your blog is called “Lovely Cupcakes” and has the username of lovelycupcakes, then your URL will be lovelycupcakes.tumblr.com, which is quite long and not very memorable or catchy. Instead, if you have a custom domain name and redirect it to your Tumblr blog, then you can use a nice short URL like LovelyCupcakes.com or L-Cupcake-Lover.com (depending on what is available).

Follow these steps in order to get your own custom domain:

  • Purchase a custom domain name from one of these sites: GoDaddy (choose the “private registration” option), NameCheap, or Hover
  • Go to Settings > Domain from the dashboard
  • Type in the new custom domain name and hit save

Use alternative text for all images

Alt text is a very important part of the web experience. Then again, it’s not something many people think of as important when they click on an image. However, alt text has many uses:

  • Search engines use alt text to index images and determine what information can be seen when someone begins to search for a name or phrase. Google will display your page and enter results for your search if it matches what is contained in the descriptive text—even if you didn’t include that exact word in your query! If a picture isn’t included with your website’s description, it won’t be indexed by search engines like Google and Yahoo!
  • If you’re using images on your website, search engines will also not index them. You’ll want to make sure that descriptive text is present for every image you publish so that anyone searching online can see it.

Post images alongside text posts

Adding images to your Tumblr posts is a great way to keep audience attention, especially for longer or particularly heavy text posts. Images can add emotion and visual aid to your posts and make them much more interesting. There are a few different ways you can add images to your Tumblr posts.

  • To post an image on its own, click the camera button on the post form. Then drag an image from your computer onto it (or click “choose file”) and hit “post.”
  • For photosets, do the same thing but select multiple images before adding them to the post form at once.
  • To add an image alongside a text post, simply copy-paste the URL of any image hosted online into the body of your text post on Tumblr. Make sure you don’t include any other text in that line so that it becomes a photo link instead of just regular text with a link in it!

Feature content from other Tumblr users

A large part of Tumblr is about discovering new content and new creators in a fun, interactive way—and it’s easy to tell if you’re getting a lot of traffic when people tag the original poster. The right Tumblr-friendly tag can get you noticed by other users, whether they’re looking for more of your kind of content or looking for something different altogether. But, just like on Twitter and Facebook, there are times when we all hit the limit on how many times we can use a tag and still keep our accounts active.

Luckily, there are ways to use tags strategically so that you’re not overdoing it—but at the same time, making sure that your content is still being found within the tags you choose to use. Whether you want to make sure your tweets don’t get lost in an endless sea of #foodporn or make sure that your blog posts don’t disappear into #thingsthatjellyfishlike—here are some steps to remember when using Tumblr tags:

Integrate with other platforms

Social media is a powerful marketing tool, and it’s easy to use Tumblr as one of your main platforms. Here are some strategies for using Tumblr with other social media platforms:

  • Share your blog posts on Twitter and Facebook. After you publish a new blog post, click the “Share” button (the three dots) in the top right of your blog to add it to your feed. Currently, users have to be logged into their Twitter or Facebook accounts to see these new posts, which is often frustrating since you can’t always guarantee that they’ll see them while they’re visiting a website. Make this painless by linking your blog to those popular social networks from within the share page!
  • Use Tumblr as a way to promote your business. Many bloggers make use of Tumblr’s easy-to-create custom domains and its powerful search features for product placement or merchandising their products. For instance, you could use Tumblr for things like “new music,” “classy shoes,” or even “real estate.” It’s easy enough to do so without feeling too much like a commercial, since each tag is just an item description with an image attached; in addition you can also make each entry private if it doesn’t fit into the category (although some users prefer public tags).
  • Use Tumblr as another way promoting yourself on other websites. If you want celebrities or influencers’ attention through retweets/likes, try using hashtag campaigns on other platforms like Instagram or Twitter so that people can see what happens when you Tweet about them! Another way that everyone should consider is asking audience members if there are any tags they’d like to see added so that their fans can find them easily.

Start conversations with your followers to encourage engagement and find out what they want to see.

  • Ask your followers questions.
  • Respond to the comments they leave on your posts—they’ll appreciate you recognizing them.
  • Promote content created by other Tumblr users (also known as reblogging).
  • Use polls to get their opinion on a certain topic. This can also help you pick out topics to write about in future posts.
  • Feature great comments left by your followers on your blog’s Theme pages, in the sidebar of posts, or directly under a post like a testimonial.

As with any type of relationship building, it’s important to listen to what people are saying and be friendly with them.

If you set up your blog the right way, get creative about how you engage with people and make it easy for them to interact with your content, it can be a great way to grow your business.

The key to using Tumblr as a promotional tool is making sure you’re organized, creative and engaging. First of all, make sure the structure of your blog is well thought out and that it’s not cluttered or confusing for people who visit.

Once you’ve set up your blog the right way, don’t be afraid to get creative with content—that’s part of what will help you stand out on Tumblr. Make sure you’re posting regularly so that your followers know they can rely on new content from you.

You can also use social media to cross-promote your Tumblr blog—just make sure that when you do, it doesn’t feel spammy or irrelevant for the platform where you’re promoting it. For example, if you’re promoting a sale on Instagram but then link back to a humorous post on Tumblr, your audience might feel confused by the transition.

Similarly, use analytics to measure what content is working and earning attention so that you can keep producing more in that vein. You’ll be able to see things like likes, reblogs, number of shares and comments on each piece of content. Also consider looking at things like traffic numbers (how many unique visitors came from outside sources) in order to get an idea about how much organic traffic (traffic from outside sources) is coming through for each piece of content.

Lastly, make sure each piece of content has relevant tags associated with it in order to ensure people who are searching for things related to your content will find it easily in their search results. Taking a few extra minutes at this step can go a long way toward growing your following organically! Another thing we highly recommend is taking advantage of Tumblr’s queue feature so that posts are automatically published even when users aren’t logged into the site—they publish according to scheduled times instead of being individually published at specific moments throughout the day by users who are active at those points in time.

Final Words

If you follow these tips, you’ll be well on your way to using Tumblr as a promotional tool. And if you start using this powerful content marketing tool correctly and effectively, you’ll be able to boost your blog’s popularity and help establish it as a reputable source for information.