It’s been a while, but I have reviewd a few web- and blog-related books in the past year such as Clout, Content Rules and Audience, Relevance and Search. As a blogger and student of content management, I’m always interested in ways to improve my writing, blog appeal and followers and to learn about new platforms.

The owner of a popular Tumblr blog called 11 questions, Elizabeth Benefiel has written a short e-book (it took me about an hour to go through it) aptfully titled How to Get More Follwers on Tumblr.

Given its length, the book is understandbly concise and is divided in 12 chapters with extra resources at the end. The topics covered go from how to set up a Tumblr blog to finding a topic, establishing relationships with other tumblrs and using apps to enhance the experience.

Because it is so short, I was not expecting much depth from this book. The target reader seemed to be someone who has absolutely no experience with blogging and social media, as most of the advice and ideas presented in the book are very, very basic. It’s a good choice if you’ve never blogged before and have never been around Twitter or Facebook, but if you have any experience in today’s Web 2.0, you’ll find most of this information obvious.

Benefiel uses screenshots (some are missing, however) and clear instructions whenever she’s dealing with a technical thing. But unless you have really no idea what you’re doing, you’ll find those instructions kind of useless. Maybe it’s just my own affinity with technology that makes me feel this way, but I can’t imagine that many people interested in Tumblr who don’t know what Twitter is or who can’t set up a blog on a platform as easy as Tumblr.

However, I really appreciated her tips on how to choose a Tumblr URL (and therefore title). She lays out some rules about what works well and what might attract readers. This information might be useful to potential tumblrs who find themselves stymied by the lack of good URLs available.

This is a useful little book if you are completely new to blogging; however, if you are more experienced, you might want to look into books that offer a bit more depth into content strategy and web and social media marketing.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book from the author. All opinions are my own.

Do you use Tumblr? Do you have tips on how to increase your following? Share them in the comments!