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Make your Tumblr more effective
Tumblr, as a web definition, is a micro-blogging platform that allows users to post: text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. This post has all our Tumblr tips that will help you to utilize this social media platform in the best way for you.
It’s not a biggy as Tumblr may not be as popular as Facebook or Twitter, but it gets over 13 million hits a week! Posts on Tumblr are frequently reblogged and shared with users, friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter and represents another avenue to get you and your music out there.
Getting started on Tumblr
Create your profile
- Pick a username for Tumblr that is the same or very similar to your other social media platforms.
- For example, TeenStar use: www.facebook.com/teenstarcompetition www.twitter.com/teenstarcomp and http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/teenstarcompetition.
- Keep your theme consistent with your other social media platforms. Use the same background images and profile picture as Facebook and Twitter profiles.
One of our useful Tumblr Tips is to make sure there is a consistent image throughout all your social media and you as an act.
Find your audience
- Search for like-minded singers. If your act is acoustic-based, search for ‘acoustic music lovers’ and follow several in that group to start to build up your fans on Tumblr.
- Actively follow users several times a week. Follow back any new followers and follow your friend’s followers. This builds your presence on the site.
- Don’t just stick to musicians; follow: music venues, record labels and music industry professionals. They are usually happy to follow back and support new artists.
Share your music
One of our best Tumblr Tips is to make sure your music is on all your social media platforms; even if it isn’t played over and over the opportunity is still there.
- The audio limit to upload is one 10MB file per day, but you can avoid this limit by streaming audio from a cloud storage account.
- Cloud storage is off of a service such as SoundCloud or Dropbox. Their link gets embedded in your Tumblr account and plays through Tumblr’s built-in audio player.
- Check out the sharing options available on any music websites you are already registered with and have a playlist uploaded. An example would be the Tunepack off of Reverb nation.
Give fans a reason to react
- The objective of having a Tumblr profile is to encourage interaction.
- The more reblogs and shares you get the wider your online presence will be. This should then impact your likes and followers on Facebook and Twitter.
- Why are more followers important? If an A&R scout finds your page, before they hear your music the first thing they see will be your popularity. A developed fan base is essential for any singer.
- Allow users to ask you open questions. Try and check your Tumblr account every day to respond to these. A handy way to make having access to Tumblr more convenient is to get the app on your smart phone. This will notify you whenever you are contacted so you can always be on hand to answer your fans questions.
Enage with other trends and profiles
- Each time you post on your Tumblr account, tag relevant key words in it. Your name, your genre and your location are good examples of key words.
- Favourite and reblog other singers posts. As you are following singers of similar artistic style, making connections with them will be handy for future gig opportunities or recommendations.
- Post on hot topics or something that people are passionate about. Make sure that your post is objective and open to comments and not discriminative or insulting.
Make it personal
- Be open and revealing. Your fans will want to know about you as well as your music. Use your Tumblr account to try mixing serious music related posts with a few light hearted ones about something that has happened to you personally. It makes fans relate to you on a personal level and makes them loyal to your music.
- A Tumblr account isn’t like Twitter. Twitter is for quick-look, instant updates. Tumblr is more in depth posts that fans can read thoroughly. You can schedule directly on Tumblr by post-dating your updates.
- Tumblr is more personal than other social media platforms, but it is still open to the public and could be viewed by a record label considering signing you in the future. Whatever it is you want to say just remember that and make sure it’s objective, backed up with facts and relevant to your fans and followers.
Vary your posts
- If posting updates will be problematic, try using a scheduled social media service like www.socialmediascheduler.com
- To mix up your posts, add in an audio post. This adds a personal touch if you’re on the move. The ability of the human voice to add emotion, such as humour, seriousness, sarcasm etc, to your posts is something text cannot convey as well.
- You can also send text, a photo or video to a designated email address to automatically post in your Tumblr account. Go to the settings page of your blog and look for the ‘post by email’ section and add the email you should use.
- Something becoming more popular is ‘Bookmarklet’. Google ‘Tumblr bookmarklet’ and drag it to your bookmark bar. Whenever you are browsing and want to blog what you’re reading, click the bookmarklet and it instantly blogs it on your Tumblr account.