You may have heard of a microblogging site called “tumblr” at some point. This is popular with people of all ages, but particularly with teens. Here’s Ashleigh, our work experience student with the lowdown on this now established site.

What is tumblr?

Tumblr is a social networking and microblogging website that was founded in 2007 by a man named David Karp. As of 2017 the website is owned by Oath Inc. The website functions in a short-form type blog in which users of the site can post multimedia and other content. The site allows its users, also called “Bloggers”, to not only make their blogs private but to also put them in “Safe Mode”, a feature which filters out not safe for work (NSFW) content.

What can you do on tumblr?

Tumblr, like most social networking sites, has a lot of features that are similar to other social media sites. For instance, on tumblr a user can “reblog” a post, an act which is very similar to both the retweet feature on Twitter and the share feature on Facebook. Likewise, tumblr users can also heart or like blog posts, a feature which is similarly found on Facebook and Twitter. Bloggers can also create their own content to post if they wish. However, something that most new users to tumblr don’t know is that there is a limit to how much a user can post in one day. This feature is simply in place to avoid unnecessary spam being posted.

So how does tumblr work?

When a user creates an account, they can get access to a number of features, such as the Dashboard, Queue, Tags and HTML editing. These features help to customise the experience of tumblr for the Blogger.

Dashboard – the Dashboard is very similar to the Facebook newsfeed feature, with the Dashboard allowing users to interact with posts and other blogs, such as commenting or liking or reblogging. Much like Facebook, this is also the part of the site where users can upload their own content, much like making a status. A good thing about tumblr is that you can also link your account on tumblr to your accounts on other social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

Queue – Much like the name suggests this feature allows the user to create a queue of posts that can be scheduled to go out when the user wants them to.

Tags – If you’re familiar with other social media sites like Twitter and Instagram that also use tags then this part should be self-explanatory. But for those who are not familiar, this feature allows users to filter content by certain topics.

HTML editing –  whilst this part may seem like you need to be more tech savvy to use it, it is simply a feature which allows the user to customise the layout of their blogs. Users are also capable of using a customised domain name for their blog.

Inbox/Messaging –Like on most social media platforms, tumblr also has instant messaging where users can directly message one another. However, tumblr also has a feature in which a user can submit content to another blog, this can either be done anonymously or not.

Are there any problems with using tumblr?

As with any social media site, tumblr has its own problems and limitations. It has problems with spam-bots but users can block accounts when they want to. Tumblr is also noted for being one of the most liberal places to post, and as a result of this tumblr has generated a large following for sex-positive and pornographic content. However, the safe mode feature allows users to hide sensitive and NSFW content.

If you wish to see some examples of how brands can use tumblr then this article is a great starting point… https://mashable.com/2013/11/14/brands-on-tumblr/#ytOgxGaYzmqT