What Do You Know About Tumblr?

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   cryptidposted 12 years ago

   I've been working through some ideas of how to increase by online presence and bring in traffic besides what I get from Big G.  I'm trying to work with some social media platforms, but unfortunately it turns out I'm not very social, or at least not that good at social media.   
   
   I then thought of a Blogger blog, but quickly figured out that anything I have to write about will probably already be in my Hubs. 
   
   So now I'm eyeballing Tumblr, and thinking it's a nice way to put out some short posts, build a following in my niche, interact with like-minded folks and put up links to my Hubs when they are written. 
   
   I do not intend these links to be for SEO or ranking purposes, but just to bring some extra traffic to my Hubs.  I don't know much about the workings of Tumblr yet, but I do believe links there are nofollow anyway, correct?
   
   Good idea or waste of time?  Will Big G see all my Tumblr links and devalue my subdomain?
   
   Any opinions on Tumblr in general?

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      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I did, and got banned because I had too many posts linking to the same place.  They seem fairly strict about that.

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         LuisEGonzalezposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         MW. I have not been banned even though every single hub that I publish I also link to Scoop.it and it sends all my links to Tumblr.
         Perhaps Scoop.it is part of Tumblr?

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      paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Pr#cks banned me for posting a link to one of my educational hubs. F#ck them. The link I posted was one that actually helps people.

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      Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I've found every single last linking strategy to be a total waste of my time.
      
      The time I've spent building links would have been far better spent creating great content...whether it be here, or somewhere else.

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         cryptidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I agree with that for the most part, but the thought that G has so much influence over my traffic is worrisome.  I get some social media traffic from people sharing my stuff, but nothing I've cultivated myself.  Just looking for other avenues for traffic.

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            Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Patience is the key here...if you create good content, and have patience...you need not backlink a thing.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I'm not sure why you'd think it worrisome, it's just the nature of things.  Think about it - if you're looking for something on the internet, what do you do?  Google it.   
            
            Google's challenge is to find a way to sift through the millions of sites on the internet and give you the result you're looking for.  The sheer mass of information means the system must be automated, and an automated system has severe limitations when it comes to judging quality of information.  So Google is constantly trying to improve it, and unscrupulous people are constantly trying to get around it.  It's so difficult for Google to stop the spammers, sometimes they take a sledgehammer to crack a nut,and there's a lot of collateral damage (good websites that get penalized with the bad).  That's just life.

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               cryptidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Understood, and I do okay so far re: Google search, but the message across internet marketing forums all over the place, including here, is not to rely on one source for all traffic.  As we've seen here, you guys who have been here longer more so than I, google traffic comes and goes.  Sometimes it comes and goes because of factors well beyond the actions of the writer, especially on a platform like this.  Seems like cultivating followers and readers through other means, like blogs and social networks, is good insurance against google's "moods".
               
               Believe me, I much prefer to just write and let G send me traffic.  I'm really struggling with these social strategies I'm trying, but everyone everywhere keeps drumming how important it is, so I'm giving it my best (sort of).

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      That Grrlposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I've been using Tumblr for years. It's fun but I don't know if it's the best choice for you. Tumblr seems to have become a content dumping ground for high school and twenty-somethings. There are sttill some great Tumblr sites to be found but most seem to be about sex, music and rude jokes now.
      
      Why not look at something else entirely? Read about content curation. Sites like snip.it and scoop.it (there are others but those are the 2 I have stuck with myself) let you add your content and other content you find in a niche topic of your choice. You don't have to write new content yourself. This means you continue your work writing here rather than splitting yourself between here and another blog. It also means you give your content here a boost by promoting it out there into the big world.

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         JayeWisdomposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         What are the actual URLS for "snip.it" and "scoop.it?"  I tried those with .com and found (1) a kids' party planning site and (2) a site about poop-scooping after pets!

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            That Grrlposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            http://snip.it
            http://scoop.it
            
            No .com on them.

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            DrMark1961posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Hi Jaye I have had several hubs "rescooped" on scoop it. The page views are not that great but it is another good source. If you can start a group, such as on Min Schnauzers, then invite some people to join, you can post all of your hubs related to Baby and maybe find a new audience. I have not found snip.it to be helpful for my type of articles.

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         cryptidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks!  I'll check those sites out.

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   Greekgeekposted 12 years ago

   Tumblr is a social community of the old Livejournal / Dreamwidth style, except that it tends to be very oriented towards sharing fanart and images.
   
   I suppose it might be possible to integrate your hubs with a Tumblr presence, but the community might react to you as a self-promoting spammer if you don't get involved in the social aspects of the community.  So I would advise hanging out on Tumblr for a while first and getting to know the community's culture, to give you some sense of what's customary on the site.
   
   I've got a lot of friends who are active on Tumblr. Their Tumblr blogs are quite personal and are a reflection of their hobbies, interests, or creative writing. For that reason, I could see Hubbers who post their creative writing on HP using Tumblr to promote their work, using HP like a story archive. Other than that, I donno.

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      cryptidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      In your opinion, would my idea work better with a blogger blog?  I'm just not sure how I'd fill another blog on the same topic as the pages I'm posting here.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Trying to promote your Hubs by writing a blog isn't worthwhile.  It used to work but not since Google changed its algorithm.
         
         There are two reasons to create links to your Hubs. 
         
         1.  part of Google's algorithm is popularity - how many people are linking TO your blog from other blogs, sites and social networks?
         
         2.  If you put your link in places where real people  will see it, they may click and visit your Hub.
         
         There's no point in writing a blog to achieve point one.  If you have a link to your HubPage sub-domain from your blog, that counts as one link.   If you have links to every Hub in your sub-domain from your blog, that still counts as only one link.   In other words, Google counts one link per domain - once you've got one link from a site, there's no point in having any more.
         
         As for link two - how many real people do you expect to visit your blog?  No one, unless you promote your blog. So you've landed yourself with the problem of promotion again.
         
         One strategy which may work for you is to spread your articles across multiple rev-sharing sites instead of just here.  Then make sure you interlink articles on different sites on the same subject. You may need to keep a spreadsheet or create a diagram to keep track of where they all are, to make sure you interlink them all properly!
         
         With this strategy, you can create a web of interlinked work that greatly increases your chances of being found and read by real people. 
         
         Some sites to use:  Seekyt, Infobarrel, Zujava, Wizzley, Xobba, ThisisFreelance, PubWages.
         
         I have to say, most people fail at this because they can't handle the idea of writing at more than one or two sites.  They are under the misapprehension that to be successful, you have to write a lot of articles on one site - not so.  It's fine to have only one or two articles on each site.

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            cryptidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I like the idea of writing on other platforms, and I've thought branching out.  I just wonder how well it would would work for this niche.  A lot of people like to read about Bigfoot, but how many of those people would click on an ad?  It works here, but I'm not sure how well I'd do at Wizzley or Infobarrel. I might  be writing there just to drive traffic here.

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               Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I remember one very successful internet entrepreneur who told me that writing online is 10% writing and 90% promotion.  So yes, you're right - if HubPages gives you the best chance of earning income, then you write on the other sites with the goal of promoting your work on HubPages.

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               Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I had a look at your HubPages account and I see you do specialize in one subject area.  That makes you the perfect candidate to turn the whole thing on its head, and move all your Hubs to your own Blogger blog. 
               
               If you're not getting a lot of traffic to your Hubs, they will be idled (i.e. the "H" next to them will disappear).  When that happens, search engines won't be able to find them so they may as well not exist.   It'll be almost impossible to build up a solid portfolio if that happens, and you have very little control over it.
               
               If you move your Hubs to a blog, you'll lose the traffic you get from the HubPages community, but your promotional efforts will be much more effective (and as part of that, you can leave a few articles on HubPages, with a link to a related article on your blog in each case).
               
               Like I said, when writing online you need  to spend at least as much time promoting as you do writing on your main site.  If HubPages is your main site, your promotional efforts are diluted because readers will visit the one Hub you linked to, but are very likely to be tempted away to other Hubbers' Hubs instead of browsing through your other Hubs.   If you're promoting your blog, once they've read the post you linked to, there's no competition for their attention, so they're likely to read your other posts, too.

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                  cryptidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  I have some other subjects I think I'll try on a stand-alone blog in the future, but right now I do okay as far as traffic on this sub, and I don't think I have any hubs in danger of idle.  I think it would be a mistake to move them, at least at this point. 
                  
                  I have no complaints with my luck here so far.  I'm just trying to look at what I can do to compliment my search traffic. 
                  
                  I really appreciate the thought you've given on this!  You and others here have been tremendously helpful.

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   relacheposted 12 years ago

   I have a tumblr blog.  The point of it is to do whatever I want, in as wide a context as possible.  So I have no problems linking to whatever I want because my links are just as diverse as my content.

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      paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Yep, I was too blatant. I might poke them with a stick again some time in the future.

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      paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      And... With some trepidation... I also invite you to play.

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      cryptidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Yeah, I see what you mean.  I might struggle to keep up with that kind posting strategy.

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   LuisEGonzalezposted 12 years ago

   I don't know it this matters but I use Scoop.it to post links and all of them get posted to Tumblr. However, I frequently re-post other's work I find to my liking. I have also seen quite a few visits from the site....

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   eternals3ptemberposted 12 years ago

   Unless you're a high school girl who loves to post fan art, really no point in joining.

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      cryptidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I've seen a lot of that in the few minutes I've spent checking out the site, but I also see people with professional-looking blogs there as well. 
      
      I get the feeling that high school and college-aged kids are a big audience for what I write anyway.

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         eternals3ptemberposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         If you are willing to spend the time to carve out a niche in tumblr, you might as well create an actual blog and use tumblr as a base to spread your own site.

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   simpelandcheapposted 12 years ago

   I don't know much about tumblr per say, I tried it out but it really just wasn't for me. With that said backlinking is really more about having people actually click on the link itself. I still think building back links that are natural ( or look natural) is the best way to get ranked on google.

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   simpelandcheapposted 12 years ago

   Can't be to patient your hubs will go idle. I think backlinks go along way especially if your writing for a competitive keyword

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