Building an Online Presence: Tumblr

Hi, Intern Kenny here again with another installment in my quest to help you build an online presence.  This post is all about Tumblr.  In essence, Tumblr is a blog but it is so much more.  Because of the vast personalization abilities, Tumblr nowadays is used by many as a base website.

First of all, to most easily explain and give tips on Tumblr, I have to include what I view as the best usage of Tumblr.

gracehelbig.tumblr.com

This Tumblr site belongs to internet darling, Grace Helbig and it acts not only as her blog but also as her main website.  As you can see, it is a very simple and attractive layout that includes everything you need on a website.

Here are some quick tips for those who want to use Tumblr instead of spending the vast amounts of time and money to build a personalized website.

Tip #1: Personally, I like it personalized

Tumblr has a lot of base templates in which you an build your website but the best way to do it is to pay for one of the premium templates.  These are relatively cheap and require little to no active maintenance.  Refer back to Grace's Tumblr; her site is a premium template where she can choose the tabs and basic placement of her feed (the video), heading, and her description.  These will make your Tumblr stand out without having to go into an overcomplicated program such as Dreamweaver.

Tip #2: Hashtags and Reblogs

One important aspect of Tumblr is to fully immerse yourself into the Tumblr community.  Tumblr allows you to label every post with a bunch of hashtags to make it easily searchable.  Their system works in the same way that Twitter's hashtagging system works and the use of hashtags will help you build a following.  It helps a lot that you, as a content provider and personality, reblog posts from other people.  By helping out other people through the easy act of reblogging, you will build a stronger connection with an audience through directly connecting to them.  

Tip #3: The Perfect GIF

On Tumblr, GIFs (pronounced with a hard "G") reign supreme.  GIFs are animated pictures often taken from videos.  An example is provided below:

via buzzfeed.com

These short animated moments dominate Tumblr and while you may not need to create your own, reblogging some of your favorites will help you appeal to the Tumblr audience much more.

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