More and more businesses have been getting on the social media band wagon. So your asking youself  “Should i be on Tumblr too? Or should I just stick with the facebook page I have?”

Well, if you’re a small business owner with your finger currenly hovering over the “Start posting” button, there are a few questions to consider first.

Is Simple Better?

Compared to platforms like WordPress, Tumblr is a simpler product . It’s easy to set up and customize, and you can start posting within minutes. Yes, with a little bit of HTML wizardry, you can alter Tumblr themes (by adding widgets and sidebars, etc), but you don’t have as much control over themes and other plugins that wordpress can offer. Also you can’t self host.  You must use Tumblr to host your site. Therefore giving you less control and when Tumblr goes down so does your site.

Ultimately, you have to ask yourself how much time and resources you’re willing to invest in your blog. If you want a clean and easy to use product that can get you up and running during your lunch break, then Tumblr is for you. But if you want to trade some time for a more bespoke option, you should go with something like WordPress.

So how do  I Set Up Tumblr

 

Pick a password and designate a URL for your Tumblr — the URL will be www.anything.tumblr.com. You can’thost the blog on your website’s domain, but you can set up a custom domain so it matches your website (such as mastermans.net/blog), place a button on your site or even link out from your site’s navigation to make it seamless for your users to consume your Tumblr content.

Then, customize your blog. Pick a theme, choose colors, pick a font, upload a header and a profile picture and write a little “about me” section. There are some great themes for small business. You can choose more of a collage layout if you’re going for a Pinterest-y, image-heavy look, or you can opt for a linear, news-feed layout.

Getting all that set up shouldn’t have taken you too long. Now, let’s start tumbling!

What to Post

 

“Blogging” no longer evokes a visual of someone sitting in a coffee shop writing about life all day. With the 140-character limit on Twitter, we’ve lost our attention span for 1,000-word musings. We want simple, palatable content in many different forms. Tumblr has helped to redefine what it means to blog and has made it infinitely easier and faster to do so. Visuals do particularly well on Tumblr, but there’s more to the site than pictures. On your dashboard, you’ll see seven options — text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio and video. Here are some great uses of each kind of post:

• Text: Explain rules for your upcoming content or make an announcement.
• Photo: A product image, a picture of your team, a picture of a celebrity wearing or using your product, a dish at your restaurant, a profile of a new team member. You can upload multiple pics, which is great for an event recap or even product shots — use a wide shot and a close-up, for instance.
• Quote: A one-liner that your fans just need to hear.
• Link: Saw something on the web that you just have to share? Link out to it.
• Chat: Did you have a funny exchange with a customer? Recount it here.
• Audio: Post the jam that has everyone in the office grooving, or maybe a song that mentions your line of work.
• Video: Did you shoot a cool sizzle reel? Post it on Tumblr!

 

To make a post, just click the icon of the media type you’d like to post. From there, it’s pretty simple — upload the picture (or video or audio) and fill out all of the fields. Be sure to tag the post with relevant terms, since searching through tags is a great way for people to discover your content. You can publish the post now or schedule it for later. The latter is a great option for time-strapped entrepreneurs — you can set aside some time each week to hammer out a few posts and then space them out over time to keep your page active, while you’re out doing other things, like running your business. Click the box to send the post to Twitter, to allow for easy distribution.

Much like Pinterest, you should go beyond just trying to push your product on Tumblr — try to embody a lifestyle. Sure, you can post product pictures, but don’t be so pushy; instead, be human. If you have a clothing company that just got samples in, show how excited you are and make your Tumblr audience feel special by giving them a first look — try posting something like, “Just got first samples of our new product line! Take a peek!” with some pictures. You can also post about your brand’s history (i.e. where’d your slogan come from? Who designed the logo? Who’s the person answering customer service calls?), along with anecdotes about customer interactions and pictures of office celebrations to give people a behind-the-scenes look at your business. Now more than ever, people want to know from whom they’re buying products, so Tumblr is a great way to let them see how great your company is. This helps build loyalty — and your bottom line.

What Now?

 

You’re all set up, and you’ve rattled off a few posts. Are you worried it’ll be tough to maintain your business’ Tumblr? Use the mobile app (see above) for easy blogging. You can even text your update from an SMS phone or update your Tumblr via email — just email your custom Tumblr email address (hint: it’s an @tumblr.com email address, not your login). If you’re an Instagram user, you can also set up the photo-sharing app to send your stylized images to Tumblr, which can add some flair to your blog and help you kill two birds with one stone, by updating two platforms in one simple move.

 

As you get in the flow of things, you should start seeing an influx of followers and activity. When you log on to your dashboard, you’ll see the river of content you’ve created, along with notes about who liked or reblogged a post and who started following your Tumblr. Give them a follow back, and then you’ll start seeing their posts when you log in — comment, like and reblog to engage with the audience and build relationships.

Does your business have a Tumblr? If not, are you inspired to start one now? Let us know in the comments below.

New Logo:

We also have a new facebook image, with the diameter of 200px x 600px let us know if you would like a template of this. So you can change your facebook page profile image.