How and why to use Tumblr

 

We love Robin Houghton’s book Blogging for Creatives, which offers know-how and advice on blogging in bite-size, beautiful sections. Here, she explains the whys, hows and why nots about using Tumblr.

If you’re still deciding on which blog platform to go with, and you want something both free and dead simple to use, take a look at Tumblr.

Although it’s been around a few years now, Tumblr has been a bit of a well-kept secret until relatively recently. Perhaps it’s because it first appealed to geeks, hipsters and the Instagram crowd. Its users still skew towards the young and the male, but recent ‘celebrity’ Tumblr blogs have raised its profile.

There’s no denying Tumblr is inherently social. If you’re familiar with Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter you’ll probably feel at home. It’s all about following and being followed by other ‘Tumblelogs’ and sharing (or ‘reblogging’) what gets posted. Rather than commenting on a post, visitors are encouraged to re-blog it or simply ‘like’ it.

Setup is quick – enter an email address, choose a blog name and that’s it. You’ll be prompted to make your first post. Choose the type of thing you’re going to post (text, link, photo, video or whatever) and upload. Once past this step you’ll be guided through some basic customisation, be offered some suggested Tumblelogs to follow, and you’re away. You can of course do a bit more customising and try different themes (there are plenty of cool free themes to choose from, many of them already optimised to display properly on smart phones).

It’s a good idea to find some Tumblelogs to follow right away, because the quicker you get into the community, the more likely your own posts will get reblogged and you will build your blog network. On the Tumblr site you can search for blogs by topic and browse popular blogs.

Although Tumblr is a community, it’s not closed – anyone can subscribe to your blog if you provide a link to your RSS feed. In that way it’s a bit like Blogger, where other Blogger users can ‘follow’ you and your posts appear on your Blogger dashboard. But here anyone can sign up to read your blog in a feedreader or by email.

Even if you already have a big fat content-rich blog on a heftier platform such as WordPress, you might fancy a lightweight Tumblelog to accompany it, for shorter, spontaneous posts between times.

As illustrator John Martz puts it, “Tumblr makes blogging feel less like editing a magazine and more like collecting neat stuff in a shoebox.”

Pros and cons of Tumblr

+ very simple to set up and start blogging

+ very social, encourages sharing and liking, it’s a community

+ if you use Facebook or Pinterest, Tumblr will feel familiar

– not intuitive if you’re used to a platform like WordPress

– no option to self-host

– does not include some features that are standard on other platforms

Some fun Tumblelogs:

The Aussie Who Ate the Big Apple

• Australian Sarah McLellan who has ‘lived, worked and eaten her way around NYC for the last 12 years.’

Adulting Blog

• Journalist Kelly Williams Brown’s blog on the theme of ‘How to become a grown-up in 387 easy(ish) steps’

Lunch Bag Art 

•  “I draw on my kids’ lunch bags.  I’m the dad. I make these during my lunch break.”

Robin Houghton is the author of Blogging for Creatives, published in June 2012 by Ilex Press, and writes on social media for a number of blogs and publications.  She’s a consultant and trainer who helps organisations with their social business communications. As well as blogging for her own business at robinhoughton.com, she also runs a blog to accompany the book (bloggingforcreatives.com) and another about poetry.