Tumblr tips for arts and museums

Annie Werner, product, marketing and community at Tumblr

There's no one right way to use it: There are many ways museums and galleries use Tumblr. Many use it like a little digital zine where they can engage with followers not only about what's happening in their space, but with all the things they like and see around the web. SFMOMA uses Tumblr to engage the artist community specifically by accepting submissions of original work - positioning themselves as a point of influence for artists looking for exposure. A lot of institutions use it as a place to share a wealth of archival content they wouldn't have a place for otherwise, for example Keith Haring's Journals.

I'm loving the American Folk Art Museum's new Tumblr; it's a great way for them to leverage the eyeballs of both the fashion and art communities on Tumblr, which are both hugely popular on the platform. No better place to bridge those two communities together.

Chris Brown, PR account manager, Barques PR

Use images: Imagery is vital in your posts as they are more shareable. When talking about the various pieces in the exhibitions I've worked on, the posts with images have been picked up a lot more than those without. Just make sure you add tags to your post, meaning they can be found when people use Tumblr's search functionality.

Know your Tumblr tags: You need to build your audience gradually and use of tags is vital in doing this, but don't make them too jargony - if you're working on an exhibition, perhaps use things like #photography or #visualarts. As much as tags are important you can have overkill; 30 tags for one post is not appropriate.

Share: Don't be afraid to share other people's content and posts. It's a great way to build your own audience but also find new content that might inspire you and your posts. Tumblr search is amazing; I've passed many hours of my day looking through it.

Scheduling is a must: If you have a spare half an hour, why not schedule your posts for the next few days? That way you don't feel under pressure to post content every single day. We all get busy and social media is the first thing to go when you've been out all day and have hundreds of emails to respond to.

Work out your social strategy: Social media is, of course, important when it comes to connecting with that younger demographic, but when making decisions to use various platforms I think it's important not to just jump on the 'young people = social media' bandwagon.

Each platform is different and best suited to a different type of content. If you have content or something to share that suits a particular platform, that's great, but trying to find something just to tick that social media box will be less successful. What you post to Tumblr, to Pinterest and to Instagram should all be very different - otherwise you're simply trying to force a square peg into a round hole. If you have a strong voice for the organisation, this should be able to carry across different platforms and content, without losing too much of its identity.

What it doesn't do: I think Tumblr is definitely lacking when it comes to the opportunity for text-based conversation. There are a number of ways of commenting on a post, but it's difficult to reply and get a back and forth discussion going as you can on other networks. Re-blogs are fantastic, and people do often add their own comments to a post, but there's no easy way to keep a track of these so it's difficult to respond.

Add text: Images posted without any text at all don't get re-blogged as often as those with an accompanying comment. The amount of text is a balancing act, I think - too much and people won't read it, but you do need something to give a bit of context and information about the picture. That's something that is important to us as we use our Tumblr to share our collections. Some objects can be pretty cryptic if you don't tell people what they are!

Do experiment with different sorts of content - audio, pictures, video, quotes - to find a way of telling your story

Do curate (re-blog) content from other sources to help populate your own Tumblr site

Do keep going - post regularly and don't give up too soon; you need a grace period where you don't obsess over numbers

Don't let Tumblr become a dumping ground for everything that anyone in the organisation wants to share

Do have at least one expert on Tumblr and allow them to make the final call about what goes up; it's important not to bore your followers

Don't try too hard to fit in with Tumblr-speak - you need to find an appropriate voice for your organisation that will probably include spelling correctly and not using capitals EVERYWHERE

Do explore the possibility of connecting your Tumblr to Twitter or Facebook, or to other services via IFTTT

Do search through your post notes to see what comments people are adding in re-blogs

Don't venture into the depths of Tumblr during work hours - there be dragons!

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