Keep on Tumblin.
Tumblrhas been described as short, to the point and direct. Anyone who is anyone has a Tumblr account. It is similar to Twitter in that it is a form of micro-blogging except people can create pages with images and short messages to express ideas, and share what they do, love and create. More specifically Tumblr posts are mostly images, gifs, meme’s, cartoons, fine art, fashion and photography. Users post to express themselves and find identity.Tumblr hosts a huge 100 million blogs. The audience is younger, 67% are under the age of 35. We recommend you use it as a source of inspiration and to promote your art.
Why use Tumblr to promote your art?
Tumblr allows you to post high-resolution images of your artwork. For example: Use Tumblr to take your followers on a journey, whilst you create a new artwork. Show images of your painting from inception to completion. Tumblr allows you to show your audience your sparkle! On a numbers note; Tumblr was recently bought by mega power- Yahoo. This is an indication that Tumblr still pulls high volumes of traffic. A large part of this traffic being the fashion industry, for example: Fashion magazines look to Tumblr as a source of whats new, and what’s trending. Through this Tumblr has a strong relationship with major fashion designers. Anyone who is anyone in the fashion world has an account. The fashion industry is closely related to design, interior design and the fine art world. In saying that the fine art world also has a huge audience on Tumblr for you to plug to.
Fine art posts on Tumblr are heavily consist of collages, mixed media, found objects and impermanent art. Matter-of-factly Tumblr is all about whats trending amongst art students, newly graduated artists, and whatever the galleries want to sell in the moment. Your art needs to fit this in order for your efforts to be effective.
Setting up
To get started on Tumblr all you need to do is sign up, pick your preferred theme and start blogging. You can include a number of different types of posts in your blog, which include links, conversations, images, audio, quotes, videos and text.
Important Note: Make sure you allow people to comment on your posts. Activity on your blog is good. To do this; go to your blog, hit the settings ( cog ) icon, click the name of your blog, in the ‘replies’ section check the boxes that allow commenting. Also allow other artists to submit their work. It makes for good variation. People will appreciate you sharing their work, and reblog yours in return.
A typical Tumblr page looks like this. Design wise less is more 😉
Using Tumblr to promote your art
Link accounts
I think the benefit of linking all your social media accounts is loud and clear. Not only does it save time when posting, but it allows your followers to move easily from platform to platform. So Link em all!
Follow other blogs
It’s important to follow other blogs. But be selective. Follow the right blogs. You aren’t on Tumblr to try and follow everyone. Follow the blogs in which you want to share you work, blogs that are relevant to you as an artist. Use Tumblr to network and form business connections. It is not a social network like Facebook, and you will find that you may get bogged down with too much information if you are too general with who you follow.
Tell your story
Telling your story is the key to success on Tumblr. Share your history, information about yourself information about your art. People care, and want to know. You want people to come to your blog and ideally reblog the content. Your posts need to be interesting and original, to engage people enough to want to share it. When you do reblog, add original content to, for example; your thoughts.
Pitch & #tag
Try to regulary have a call to action in your posts. Ask people to do things when you post. For example: post a work in progress shot and ask them to sign up to your mailing list for notifications of when pieces are available for sale. Educate them on future projects.
In previous blogs we discussed the #hashtag and it’s importance. Tumblr utilises them also. I recommend you consider creating your own tags. People spend most of their time on their Tumblr Dashboards. This means that things move very quickly. You want people to find your art quickly. A business hashtag is a good idea, for example: #bluethumbart.
Use personal snippets on Tumblr rather than commercial language, as it is essentially not a business site whenever you are posting about your work.
Post often/ use the ‘Queue’ function
Post often and mix up your posts. Use different #tags each time you post, this broadens your audience. Posting consistently increases your chances of being featured on other blogs. Use the ‘queue’ function, this will make things easier. You can create several posts, and time them to be published at differnt intervals. This way you can avert your attention elsewhere, and rest assure your Tumblr account will remain active, without your constant attention. Think about when you’re target market are likely to be at their computers, and time your posts to coincide. You want your posts to show up in their stream, and on their dashboard. In doing so, more likely to be read.
Submit your art to other art blogs
There are many art blogs that are hosted on Tumblr, that get ALOT of hits. They feature art as often as every 10 minuets. These blogs have many followers. It is definitely a good idea to submit your work, along with links to your website, to these blogs on a regular basis. If you get lucky and a popular blog posts your art, you could get hundreds, if not thousands of likes and reposts. This is BRILLIANT exposure. Keep at it on a regular basis, and don’t feel discouraged if it doesn’t happen straight away. Many of these blogs have thousands of works to moderate a day. 🙂 Some blogs to start doing this with are: Eat, sleep, draw. Tumblr open arts. Summer Fridays for art. Artist collective.
Reblog
Reblog other users posts that inspire you. If they are works by the user, make sure you credit them. This is also a great way to allow others to repost your work and essentially promote it. A lot of blogs on Tumblr are solely re-posters. This kind of activity will help you build relationships with other bloggers, which is always valuable.
How other artists are using Tumblr to promote their Art
http://caitlinbates.tumblr.com/
