Tofu

For many years, Tumblr was sitting in the background of social media, not making much noise at all. Tumblr started around 2007 in New York City, just one year after the wildly successful ?Twitter? launched. Yet, it didn?t seem to make much noise?at first. Today, Tumblr boasts an enormous 53,200,000+ blog database. Many see Tumblr as just another free host, on par with Blogspot and other free services like it. Tumblr merges the blogosphere with social interactivity, with help of options such as the ?like? and ?reblog? buttons. Users can simply view an entire, aggregated feed of all blogs they follow and comment, photo-reply, like or reblog anything that strikes their fancy.

Tumblr is a wealth of traffic for those who have the patience to learn its behavior, recognize its trends and take advantage. However, you may have to adapt to things. First, tumblr is heavily ridden with ?borrowed? content. Simply put, it is a hotbed of people reposting pictures from private collections or from sites they visit. For examples sake, we'll consider it to be the same as a tube site, but with pics as the main focus. This may anger some of you webmasters and content producers who don?t get along with the tube business model. I won?t tell you to go steal as much content as you can and begin posting rapidly. Instead, find your niche (micro-niches being the best to gain a dedicated audience) and some sponsors or content producers who provide content, or provide your own. Alternatively, you may want to contact the content owner and ask if it is okay to use the content and do the right thing and send a link back, as a sign of good faith. Many tumblr users are not in the adult business and do not care who owns the rights to the content they willingly distribute. This does not mean that you have to do the same. Here are some tips to help get you started:

1. Interesting or different content yields the best results. A picture/video of a model, playing with a dildo may be hot, but the same model playing with a spiked dildo is even hotter to the Tumblr masses. Make sure your content is eye-catching and worth a reblog. Tumblr users are finicky when it comes to pics/videos. The average user will scroll through their dashboard of feeds VERY quickly, often ignoring anything mundane.

2. Be social. Tumblr is a social site, so get out there and make some friends! Any sites that have lots of followers or share the niche you are promoting are the best ones to follow. Don?t expect a follow back too soon. Tumblr?s messaging and alert system is somewhat flawed, sometimes mixing up or losing things in your inbox. Maybe the blog you are following is a sub account (see #5) and the blogger cannot follow you from that account.

3. Tie your sites together. Tumblr is a one-stop ping shop, with several options of distributing your content to many other social media sites, such as; Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and many others. If you?ve made friends on twitter who also have Tumblr pages, you?ve got someone to retweet your posts, giving your blog that much more exposure!

4. SEO the hell out of it. Besides being able to link your many social networks together, Tumblr also gives you the ability to name your permalinks, add tags and even click-though link your picture to wherever you?d like! Try sending to any sponsor or page you wish! Another cool feature that you?ll recognize from other blog software is the ability to schedule your posts to future dates, allowing you to get a bulk of work done on those caffine-fuled nights of posting. Schedule ahead to keep your blog from becoming too ?spammy?. The possibilities are many.

5. Multiple blogs under the same email address vs. different address. Tumblr also gives you the ability to create multiple blogs under the same account. I?m not exactly sure how much of a difference this makes, other than the fact that you cannot follow people back that follow you on any blog but the master. This could possibly hurt you if your Tumblr campaign is heavily social.

There are so many things one can do with tumblr. These days, more and more mainstream websites are moving to tumblr because of the social capabilities. You can get your pic, videos or messages out to a wider, more responsive audience who will freely distribute it. The secret to a successful campaign is build, submit, socialize, comment, reblog, repeat. I?ve given you the basics, now get out there and be somebody!

Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.

~ Tofu De la Moore

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