There are a few other ways to post to Tumblr other than the dashboard or the mobile app. Some of these are well-known and others are hidden gems.

1. The bookmarklet: For some, the bookmarklet is essential to the Tumblr experience. It truly makes it super simple to post to your blog while you browse on the web all day long at work instead of getting done what you needed to complete yesterday.
2. By email: Did you know that you can post to Tumblr via email? Each blog in Tumblr has its own unique email address. To find out that magic address, log in to the dashboard, click on the blog you want to post to, click on the blog settings link. Scroll down about halfway and you should see a Post by Email Address. Tumblr also provides a guide on how to post via email.
3. By phone: I haven’t used this often, but you have the ability to publish an audio post by phone. To configure this feature, head over to Tumblr’s goodies page and scroll about halfway down the page. You should see a “Call in audio” section. It takes a minute to set this option up for your blog. All you have to do is click the “Configure” button to start. 

There are other ways you can post or share content to your Tumblr blog through third-party services, such as via Flickr and Soundcloud. Do you have any other examples?

Posted by Todd Wickersty, founder of Business Bullpen. You can follow Todd on his blog, Tumblr or Twitter.

We recently did a complete rebranding project for our client Cobec, which included not only a new website driven by WordPress, but also a couple of Facebook apps.

The requirements were fairly simple—two tabs on the Cobec Facebook page: “What We Do” and “Careers” (you can see the final result in the first image below). To start, I registered myself on Facebook with my work email address and created a Cobec test page so I didn’t risk mucking with the client’s page while developing and testing. Creating the apps themselves was a little tricky because I had never done any FB development before, but once I got the hang of the functionality in developers.facebook.com, it wasn’t too bad. These apps basically just display an external web page in Facebook’s content area through the use of an iFrame. The bulk of the work in Facebook is registering the apps, pointing them to the proper external URLs, and then adding the apps to a page.

One of the requirements for the apps was that they reuse content from Cobec’s website. Since the website was built in WordPress, creating the FB app pages and reusing content was as simple as copying the WP theme from the main site to a new theme folder and restyling the site with a fixed width to match Facebook’s iFrame. You may at this point be asking yourself how I got the Facebook apps to use the theme for FB instead of the website theme, which is an issue I wrote about recently. Click here if you are curious how that was handled.

You can check out Cobec’s Facebook page here.

The same content on the Cobec website:

Posted by Brian Chenault, developer for Business Bullpen. You can follow Brian on Tumblr or Twitter.

Disclaimer: I’m fully aware that this blog post is flying directly in the face of one of my other recent posts titled “Information Overload.”

I recently discovered Memolane. Still in beta mode, the app is a great idea, although I’m still trying to figure out exactly how I might use it. Basically, it allows you to add from a list of about 15 social media sites to aggregate all of your activity from those sites into a “lane” or a timeline. This timeline is what other users will see when they visit your homepage, and Memolane is nice in that it allows you to control what access you give to each of these social media apps.

I guess, for my money, the coolest feature is that in one place I can go back in time, currently as far back as the summer of 2006, and see all of my social media activity from then. Not that I have a desire to relive the past, but sometimes it can be interesting to go back and remember things that I’d completely forgotten. Now, what would be REALLY cool is if there were an option to link to Rdio and see what I was listening to a year ago.

Posted by Brian Chenault, software developer at Business Bullpen. You can follow Brian on Tumblr.

I admittedly have been struggling this week with the sheer amount of information coming my way. Work emails, emails from friends, songs to learn for recording sessions, trying to keep up with maintaining a couple of websites, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr accounts. Throw in that Pinterest account that I just created and it adds up to a lot of information to keep on top of. Sometimes I struggle with trying to decide where to find a balance with it all.

I certainly don’t spend nearly as much time on Twitter as I used to. And I’m finding Facebook less and less valuable. As a newbie to a company that has fully adopted Tumblr, I am still trying to discover a manageable way to follow people and get content I might enjoy. It seems like everyone I know is clamoring this week for a Google+ invitation. And I have a friend who has been practically begging me to sign on to turntable.fm, and now he’s sending me emails about Spotify coming to the US soon. Well, you know what? One of our employee perks is a paid Rdio.com account, and I have fallen hopelessly in love with it. So … I don’t really have the time or the inclination for turntable.fm or Spotify at the moment, even if there features are quite different. And as far as Google+? Sorry, but I just don’t have the time or the bandwidth for another social network at the moment. If it reaches critical mass and it makes more sense for me to use that than to use Facebook, sure … but until then I’m just fine, thank you.

As a software developer, I know this isn’t quite a standard position on technology. Many of us are early adopters, tinkerers, and experimenters. Well, I’m making a stand and saying that at this time in my life, it’s getting to be too much. I’m trying to find ways to simplify in all areas of my life. I’ve recent downsized the guitar amp I use for gigs, cleaned out my closet of clothes I don’t wear, and am trying to learn to say yes only to projects I truly want to be involved in. And this goes for technology as well. If I find myself logging on to a social media site every day and not getting much out of i t— bye. If there is a tool I’m using at work that doesn’t make me more productive or at least make the work easier — see ya.

Posted by Brian Chenault, developer for Business Bullpen. You can follow Brian on Tumblr or Twitter.

So, your organization has a Facebook page, Twitter account and Tumblr (or other blog)… that’s great. But, does your organization have a plan in place on how to use them effectively? How about a schedule for posting? Are you keeping track of what you post where and when? Or are you one of those organizations whose social media strategy consists of firing Wall posts, Tweets and blog posts from the hip with no clear target in sight? If so, read on!

It’s not enough to simply have social media accounts for your business; you have to learn how to use them effectively. And while no one strategy works for every business or organization, here are some tips to get you started.

Define your social media outlets

Let’s start with the basics: what social media platforms are you using? For the sake of this post, let’s assume you have a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a blog. The next question is: who within your organization has access to (i.e., publishing rights) to these accounts?

Categorize the types of content

What type of content are you posting? Photos? Links? Six-hundred word blog posts? Quotes? Customer questions? Before you start (or continue) blasting random posts, take a breather, gather your social media team and develop some categories for your posts.

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