I'm not sure that I understand Tumblr at all... help!

[AdrenalineShots]

I just don't get it, the whole panel / system seems so confusing.

Also, how do people see your posts? It doesn't seem like there is a "fresh / new" page like Tap / DA etc.

Am I missing something?!

And does anyone find Tumblr useful anyway!?

It seems to be impossible to get anyone to see your content, let alone follow?!

[shazzbaa]

I'm not sure what you mean by the panel system -- that might be photosets? Can you explain what's confusing you?

Tumblr has a couple of uses! A lot of people are on tumblr, so it can be a useful social media to stay connected to your audience -- posting art, answering questions, reblogging things you like, etc. For folk who use tumblr casually it can be a way for the people who follow your art to get to know you better.

But if you're looking to be discovered on tumblr, in my experience people find new blogs they're interested in (a) from someone they follow reblogging it or (b) from the tags, which is the answer to your second question -- if I draw Undertale fanart, and tag it "#undertale," then it shows up in the Undertale tag, and people looking for Undertale fanart will see it there. Only the first five tags you use will work this way (the rest are just to organise your blog) so it's good to be thoughtful of your first five!
It might help you to find other artists who do the kind of art you do, or draw subjects you're interested in, and see what tags they're using on their work? Or, search tumblr for tags that you think might describe your work, and see if you can find that sort of thing posted there, and what other tags those posts use!

I feel like the easiest way to find new people is honestly to be part of a community there. For a lot of us, that's gonna be fandom -- draw good fanart and tag it appropriately and that fandom will find you. And if you post often, a small percentage of the people who follow you for your fanart might be interested in your official stuff as well!

Tumblr, in my experience, can feel like yelling into a void for a while, though. It took me at least a year (and some Homestuck fanart and reblogs from friends) before I had enough of a following there to feel like anyone was responding to the things I posted. But I guess, I was never really using tumblr solely as a promotional tool? For me it started out as a place to be more casual and share silly fanart and sketches of my friends' D&D characters. And some of that stuff has found me an audience on tumblr, and a small percentage of that audience is interested enough in my original work to like it and share it with others.

I like tumblr okay! But I don't know how useful or efficient it is if you're solely using it to promote.

[spadesart]

tumblr isnt a comic site, its a social media/blogging site. there IS a webcomic blog theme that people use though! shazz already covered most of the basics

[AdrenalineShots]

Thanks Guys

Can you do me a favour can you go to the page and see if you can actually view it / see it in search results? That might be a problem as a friend said they can't find it at all?

Adrenaline Shots - Official

I've tried the hashtags but still doesn't seem to make any difference at all. Totally get the social side of it, but not having any notes at all makes me think might be a problem with some setting I may have one?

[AdrenalineShots]

I've put up a couple of images as a test

[indagold]

I've been posting my comic on there for a year... nothing. Not one like or reblog. So far unless you have a following or post memes I have a feeling your account will be dead that's what I feel. I don't know if the sites being wonky or people usually don't care.

[AdrenalineShots]

Yeah, that's the way it' seeming to me too at the moment

[shazzbaa]

it's showing up for me! And I checked the "vampire" tag and found your post there, as well:

(you can go to tumblr.com/tagged/[whatever tag you used] to see the most recent posts in that tag, rather than just the filtered top posts)

You don't have problems with your settings that I can see! But finding good tags to use for original stuff is always a challenge. Generic things like "funny" and "comic" and "art" aren't going to get you many people because like... who's going to browse that tag? There's such a huge amount of disparate stuff that it'd be pointless, you might as well be browsing a random assortment of posts.
This is part of why being involved in a specific community or doing a specific challenge or drawing fanart helps on tumblr. Nobody's going to be browsing the tag for "#skeleton" but if you've drawn fanart of #Papyrus from #Undertale or #Skeletor from #heman, someone who is a big fan of those characters might be browsing those tags. People aren't going to wade through the entire #art tag but they might check out what's being done for #inktober2017

If you only post illustration work that's not related to anything else and have 0 established following, then yeah, I think indagold might be right -- it's going to be tough to build up a following from scratch that way. And while I've seen people gather a following just from having a lot of really nice art of their characters, I have a feeling you'd have to be okay with shouting into the void for a long time before you got there.

[nikaalexandra]

I’ve had a lot of success posting on tumblr and it’s a real goldmine for self contained comics and illustrations (not necessarily long form narratives posted page by page, although a few creators have pulled that off)

the big thing about tumblr is that posts are spread by “word of mouth” rather than by having a central “popular page” (which thank god. It can be helpful to keep everyone on the same playing field rather than having fresh or niche posts buried by popularity) and you can really shine there if you use their tagging system right

[NickRowler]

Tumblr is similar to Twitter where there are trending topics, there is no new/fresh unless you are searching for a hashtag, like #puppies. Tumblr will recommend blogs to you but this is mostly based on what you already follow. If you follow/Like/Reblog a lot of puppies, you will be recommended more puppy blogs.

The lack of a "new" tab might be for the best for Tumblr seeing how the site is not very well organized, like how it is on Deviantart or heck even Youtube. You would be more or less just seeing everything, which would include fetish blogs, bots, extreme politic blogs, etc.

I never found Tumblr useful for building an audience. I guess I had some pieces which users enjoyed but it's was very rare for them to turn into followers. Now my Tumblr is sort of half dead, and I rarely post.

[Rhombik]

I've been slowly building a following. I reckon it's worthwhile, although it's slow, because you'll get a bigger mix of people reading your comic.

I've heard that you've got to engage a lot with other Tumblrs to get a big following but I haven't really been trying as... I don't know what I'm doing. I just post, add Tumblrs I like, write some stuff and hope for the best.

[zigmenthotep]

I don't know about anyone else, but I've been experiencing a near-total drop in post interaction on tumblr over the last year or so. And it's probably only going to get worse now that they've rolled out "best stuff first."

[nikaalexandra]

i've noticed that too. i think tumblr had something of a mass exodus after yahoo acquired it a few years back, and they continually lose users to other, more reliable social media platforms