Small Case Study: Tumblr’s Highlighted Posts
Above is the Google Analytics line graph showing visitors to this site over the past month. I expected and saw a spike yesterday, when I posted - and heavily hyped on social media - my post with full audio of the Future of Radio panel at SoundCloud. That hype included $1 spent on Tumblr’s new Highlighted Post feature, which caused the post to appear in my followers’ news feeds with a red “sticker” that said “Super proud of this!” (Which I was/am.)
So how much traffic resulted from that $1?
As you can see in these screen shots from Google Analytics, there was some referral traffic from Tumblr, but it was far from my number one traffic source.
But that doesn’t necessarily surprise me. I have much bigger followings on Twitter (1,040 followers) and Facebook (199 friends, 15,000 subscribers) than I do on Tumblr (123 followers.) As a result, I expect that I’ll always see more traffic from the former two sources.
Was the highlight worth $1? I’d say yes. I can spare $1, and the highlight probably resulted in some views (and this post). However, I don’t think you can come to any significant conclusions about whether highlighting posts is worthwhile from this very small case study.
Would I do it again? Sure, why not. It’s just a buck - still cheaper than a Facebook or Google ad or Twitter promoted trend.
