Yesterday marked three months since I first launched my Connected Comedy Tumblr page. Since I previously wrote a post explaining why I joined Tumblr, today I’d like to update you about how it’s going and what I’ve learned so far.

Overall, my Tumblr experiment has been pretty successful despite the fact that I haven’t put all that much time and effort into it since the main focus of my content is still this website (which is powered by WordPress by the way). Still, I’ve found Tumblr to be well worth the time I’ve put into it and here’s why…

1. It’s Not (Too) Hard To Build A Following

In the course of the first three months, my Connected Comedy Tumblr page has attracted 130 followers and generated almost 5,000 page views – which I know because I installed Google Analytics on the site (something I’d recommend you do as well in order to track your audience growth). I should also note that most people who “follow” you on Tumblr likely read your content in their Dashboard as opposed to actually visiting your site, so that means the page views number is probably significantly lower than the number of people actually reading your content on the site.

Most importantly, for my purposes, my followers on Tumblr are almost all comedians. This is my target audience, so it’s encouraging to see that Tumblr is allowing me to connect with the people I want to connect with.

As far as how I have grown my following so far, it’s primarily come as a result of people discovering me when other people have shared or reblogged my content on Tumblr. There have been a few people who I followed that then followed me back, but primarily it’s come as a result of my content getting shared.

One of the best things that’s happened is that several other Tumblrs that have lots of comedians as followers – including Carolines comedy club, The Comedy Store, and The Comedy Bureau among others – have shared my content with their followers which helped people discover me.

Another thing I’ve found effective when it comes to getting new followers is that I’ve usually followed people who have “liked” my posts. It’s interesting to me that lots of people would “Like” my posts, but not follow me. However, if I took a moment to follow them after seeing that they liked my post, they almost always follow me back.

2. It Helps Promote My Content

Besides the original content I post on Tumblr, I often post links to my bigger articles hosted on this site and I’ve found that Tumblr has been helpful in driving traffic to my main site. Specifically, my Tumblr page has driven more than 600 visits to my main site in the last three months, which is pretty good considering the size of the audience I have on Tumblr at the moment.

I’ve also learned that I’m able to drive a lot more traffic when I include some teaser text along with the link to the article I post on Tumblr as opposed to just posting the link. I think this is because a couple paragraphs of the article gives people a better idea what it’s about, and hopefully hooks them in to wanting to read the article even if the headline didn’t.

Here’s an example of a recent link I shared – you’ll notice that I also included a link at the end of the teaser text to make sure that readers understand there’s more to read if they click.

3. It’s A Great Outlet For A Different Kind Of Content

I come across a lot of interesting videos, quotes, and articles which don’t necessarily warrant a full article on this site, but still have value for my audience. I’ve found that my Tumblr page is a perfect outlet for this content and, unlike just posting it on Twitter, it creates a sort of permanent archive of these things and brings new readers into the Connected Comedy world.

To give you an idea of what’s worked best for me on Tumblr, here’s my five most popular posts on the site so far:

• A Reminder That The Words You Choose Matter (video)

• I’m Guessing This Wasn’t Authorized By Wal-Mart (video)

• Weed Card (video)

• This Is How You Turn A Simple Twitter Search Into Traffic (picture)

• A Bizarre Presentation (video – reblogged from another Tumblr)

4. Tags Help Get You Traffic

It may seem like the tags you can add to your posts on Tumblr are meaningless, but they’re actually very important because they can really help you attract new readers. I see a lot of comedians on Tumblr ignoring the tags and not bothering to include them on their posts, but I think that’s a big missed opportunity.

There are lots of Tumblr users who are either searching for content based on tags or have actually subscribed to “track tags” that are of interest to them. This means that if you tag your posts with something they are tracking or looking for, they’ll be introduced to your content and potentially share it.

Keeping that in mind, I’d recommend using tags that you feel like a lot of people may be following or looking for – for example, almost every post I do is tagged video, or photo, or quote, or funny, or YouTube, or comedy, etc. I use big, broad tags based on what I think is relevant to  the post and (just as importantly) what people are likely to be searching for. It’s a great way to get new people to discover your Tumblr.

Obviously, three months is way too early to really judge how this Tumblr experiment will turn out for me, but so far it’s been well worth the time I’ve put into it. If you’re on Tumblr I encourage you to follow my page and I’d love to hear from you in the comments on this post about any things you’ve learned from your experience on Tumblr so far…