Note “Popularity” vs Follower Conversion

• Until you build a large following of your own, you may be blessed with a reblog stream that comes from being shared by someone who has a large following. I find that if any of my posts get shared by Marcus, Kelly or Francis, I get a stream of reshares and likes (which I am eternally grateful for. You should check out their blogs, as they do great work).
• However, this can rarely leads to followers, as blog posts I’ve made with 150+ notes will yield none.
• NOTE: This seems to be different when a post is an image set or a written post; the former seem to be “one off” reshares, while the latter tend to attract more repeat viewers in the hope you’ll produce more material.
  While posting entertaining GIFs will get short term share spikes, there isn’t any promise of repeat entertainment, unless you’re a theme blog.
• What You Can Do: For the past week I’ve added a simple “If you like this post, or found it by reblog, consider giving the original poster a follow” signature to my posts. I have gotten more new followers in that window of time than I have over any other month. 
• It’s sincere enough that people won’t be annoyed (because well, everyone wants to be recognized for their work), and if they don’t like it, they won’t follow. It helps to properly source things, as, well, you’d be a douche to beg for followers while trying to pass off something as your own. 

Tag Traffic vs. Networking

• Tag traffic (that is, people coming from tag searches) tend to be very low when pitted against being shared by users with high followings (see above). However, the important thing to realize is that theme blogs use these tags to find material; you have nothing to lose by tagging the hell out of everything you write.
• What You Can Do: For instance, I’ll add both “Adventure Time” and “Adventure Time with Finn and Jake” to relevant posts, as, well, they’re two separate search terms. It’s like how “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and “Avatar: The Legend of Korra” are completely different properties. Tagging “Avatar” might be “good enough” (hell, throw it in anyways!) but you might miss people looking for specificity in the meantime.
• However, it’s often more valuable to be reblogged by people of note, as it can almost be seen as an endorsement of “Okay, this is quality.” Even if it’s an argument or criticism, curious parties will wander over.
• Tumblr’s system is unique in that you will see everything someone posts; with Twitter, tweets starting with an @reply will be hidden if you don’t share that person on your list.

There will always be reblog fodder, but it will rarely help your cause

• Like snarky commentary during an awards show on Twitter, there are certain things that will always get you reblogs. Hell, I posted two screencaps from the opening sequence of a cartoon and netted myself 44 interactions.
• These tend to be semi-timely: GIFs from a just-aired TV show will be shared like hell within a fandom, and screencaps (rev up those VLC players!) do just about as well. 
• Again, like I mentioned above, unless you’re a theme blog with the promise of more content, this will rarely net you followers.
• Since new followers will be seeing your content through common friends, your name/link is often buried within the post itself. It is uncommon for people to forgo the initial entertainment of the post itself and say “Man, I wonder who the man/woman behind this post is?” and click through to your page.
• Since there is no easy way to follow the original poster of the post, you are unlikely to see any benefit. This is especially true when a blog post is picked up by a popular theme blog: you’ll often see “X reblogged this post from notyourblog”, and your only involvement will be limited to a small linked name that no one will bother to click. This is the major problem in the why mass notes =/= mass followers.

By Sofia P. on Flickr

So, what can I do?

• It’s tough, because as soon as you try to force people to read your blog, it is very easy to come off as a douche. The flaws in Tumblr’s system create these problems, and fixing them requires effort that users might not want to expend.
• Encourage good practices - Webcomic artist kind of get the shaft on Tumblr (as we’ve seen before), so it’s a good idea to encourage people to view the original artist’s site, if only to support them. Insist on proper sourcing (I appreciate Maya chewing me out from time to time) and give credit where credit is due. No one wants to think the time spent on something was a waste of time, so comment, like, subscribe, whatever.
• Produce good content in a timely manner - If you want people to follow you and appreciate your work, you have a responsibility to churn out good stuff from time to time. Suddenly getting an influx of 100 followers then falling off the map is not good form. The queue is there for a reason.
• Don’t let Tumblr be your sole social media strategy - Like I said above, until Tumblr gets its act together with analytics, a large amount of ad/direct traffic is going to come from Twitter, G+ and Facebook. Share your direct links there, and more often then not it will come out in a respectable format. Use bit.ly (and sign up) to get an idea of how many people are clicking, and use that data to your advantage (like I’ve written before).
• Weigh your options - Can you stand losing the sharing power of Tumblr in favour of Wordpress, Squarespace or Blogger? Is your traffic/exposure dependent on shares? If not, it might be worth switching over to a system that’s more under your control; however, for artists/photographers, the ease of sharing is a bit hard to let go.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to comment, and follow me on Twitter.