Tumblr has been my greatest source of traffic and sales compared to any other social media website Once your blog is all set up Tumblr is easy to use to generate traffic and gain new followers.
In this post I am going to go over some of the basic necessities to set up your Tumblr shop blog, and get it noticed.
1.) Pick a good theme
Do not stick with the default theme Tumblr gives you. It is not a very good looking theme, and often times spam accounts do not change their theme, so it could get you confused as a spammer. Tumblr offers a few basic themes, but I personally do not find many of them to be aesthetically pleasing. A good place to look for themes is
this blog. They even have a page of
themes by type.
While you want to have a theme that focuses on images, I do not suggest grid type themes. They can be clunky, load slowly, and often do not share the text under a post. Most themes come with instructions of how to install it on your blog. After it is installed you can edit it to your pleasing by changing the background, images, and even the links.
2.) Sharing posts
Now that your theme is set up and pretty (you can always go back and edit it later) you are going to want to share some posts! Tumblr allows you to share 7 different types of posts; text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio, and video. I personally find myself using text, photo, and link posts most often.
With photo posts you can share up to 10 images per post. You can also arrange these images before posting them. If you are posting an image of your product be sure to provide links to where potential customers can buy them!
The first place you can include a link is clicking the gear icon on the top of the post.
The next place to add a link is in the caption area. After adding your caption highlight the text and click on the icon that looks like a sideways infinity symbol.
3.) Using tags
Tags are one of the most important and easiest ways to get your post noticed. Do not go tag crazy, though, only the first 4 or 5 tags will actually make those posts visible in their respective tags.
When choosing tags consider questions like:
What is it?
What is it made off?
Does it fit into a certain fashion style/motif?
Where is it being sold?
Colors?
Here are some example tags I would use for my egg hair clips
After that click the blue "post" button and congrats! You just shared your first post on Tumblr.
4.) Using the queue to your advantage
You do not want to spam your followers with your posts all at once, this is where setting up a queue becomes helpful.
After you are satisfied with your with your new post click the arrow in the blue box and select "Add to queue". After that click on the blue button and the post is queued.
After that you will need to set up your queue to post. You can select how frequently you want the queue to post and between what times.
Simply select queue from the side bar
And then on the top of the new page it will let your change the settings.
A big advantage of using the queue is that you can keep your blog active without having to check in with it every day. People like to follow active blogs and will often unfollow blogs that have not posted in a while, so be sure to always keep a post or two in your queue.
Even if you do not have a new post related to your shop to share, consider rebloging other items. I share images of bunnies. It keeps your blog fresh and keeps it from looking like an advertising billboard.
5.) Encourage your fans to follow your new blog
Share your new Tumblr on your Facebook fan page, twitter, your webpage, on your shop, wherever it is appropriate.
Tumblr works through reblogging. So if a follower reblogs your post, all their followers will see the post. This continuous sharing can be a quick way to direct traffic to you and your shop.
6.) Consider looking to sponsor a few bloggers
Sponsoring is when you send items to another blogger an in return they review and take pictures of them wearing/using the item. This is completely optional and not a requirement. I personally used to send items to other bloggers and models, but I do not do it often anymore unless I need a specific item modeled. I feel that I have enough traffic coming to my blog from my own posts and attention I get from sharing my posts on my personal blog.
You can either search for bloggers to sponsor yourself, or you may receive messages from people who wish to work with you on a review. When you meet a blogger you may want to sponsor you are going to want to gain some more information:
How many followers do they have(it is best to look for blogs with 5,000 or more followers)?
Have they done any other reviews before?
If they have done reviews before, how well are they written?
What is the quality of their photos?
Unfortunately there are some bloggers out there who take advantage of shops looking for reviewers to get free items. That is why it is important to check their credentials before sending them the items. If you are unsure or the person seems 'fishy' do not be afraid to turn them down.
Communication with the reviewer is important. Let them know when you are sending the items and provide them with a tracking number. You should also let them know to message you when the review is up, or even schedule when you would like the review ready. If you are worried that the reviewer is taking too long you can always message them and ask about their progress on their review.
I hope you learned something new about using Tumblr to market your shop! There is more out there that you can do on Tumblr, but hopefully this post gave you a jump start into setting up your blog.
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