8 Tips For A Real Tight Tumblr Strat
If your attention span is too short to blog, but you’re turned off by Twitter’s boring lack of pictures, Tumblr has emerged as the Internet’s most important self-publishing platform for self-important people.
Just yesterday the NY Times did a real buzzy piece on just how important Tumblr actually is (John Mayer is on here now - important). It was a pretty nice stratnalysis, except for the part where they called SoupSoup the ‘King of Tumblr’. He’s a cool bro, but I think we can all agree that I am Tumblr’s one true king (correct it, NY Times).
Anyway, if you haven’t already gotten the hint: You need to get Tumblring. So here are 10 tips to help you put together a real tight Tumblr strat.
1. On Tumblr people are not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their content. This ain’t LinkedIn, and around here your personal brand is only as sticky as the cool/funny stuff you find on the Internet and then put into the stream. But remember: the early bird gets the meme reblogs, so if you want to drive lots of likes, you’d better be jacking buzz by 6am EST.
2. So what kind of content works on Tumblr? People love to like: Viral Vimeos with Zach Galifianakis, things/stuff hipsters love/hate, random photographs or screenshots of things we forgot about from the ’80s or ’90s, pop culture-related infographics, animal pictures, pithy little passive-aggressive rants about anonymous people who pissed you off, artsy shit, CollegeHumors, songs everybody obviously likes, design/font porn and the phrase “Fuck Yeah” placed before everything.
3. Giving credit is for losers. If you’re sitting on a hot piece of viral gold-meme, don’t even bother checking to see if it’s already been posted on BuzzFeed/Videogum/The Daily What/Urlesque/FFFFound!/Gawker/Vulture/EPIC Ponyz/et al. Just go ahead and post it like you made it yourself. Maybe no one else will notice and you’ll get a bajillion reblogs.
4. Post Gratuitous Pictures of Yourself. Finally, a place for you to put every single grainy iPhone photo of yourself taken at some AMAZING media event or karaoke night or just sitting in your bedroom illuminated by the lonely glow of your laptop screen. Posting cool/flattering photos of yourself is super-important, because it visually reinforces the personal brand you’re trying to cultivate with your content. Tumblr has even created GPOYW (Gratuitous Picture of Yourself Wednesday), an entire day every week in which everyone is encouraged to post pics of themselves without the shame of seeming narcissistic (thanks to the ingenious move of ironically acknowledging its gratuitousness).
