Are You Using Tumblr?

Are you using Tumblr? I've been using Tumblr for a few years now and recently have become more interested in it as a Social Media tool and medium.


What is Tumblr? Tumblr is a Social Media tool that some people would classify as micro blogging (see wikipedia entry on blogs). Micro blogs are characterized as blogs with posts that are typically shorter than many blogs. Operating a microblog allows you to be creative and express yourself without all the maintenance and set up associated with some of the more formal blogs. With Tumblr it is easy to post text, share links, quotes, pictures, videos, and so on and you generally don't need to be a coding expert to use it! In the picture below you can see some of the things that you can post and you can do it by just pushing the icon pictured of what you want to do.

Dashboard View of Tumblr

I first discovered Tumblr via Zenhabits. I tried to find the article that I first read about it there, but my search resulted in too many returns to locate it. Leo Babauta was (and still is using it) as a way to share links and other interesting things with his readers. I decided to use it in a similar fashion. In fact in the second picture you even see a picture of Leo Babauta next to something he posted on Tumblr that was in my dashboard view when I did the screen capture recently.

Readers can subscribe to your RSS Feed

One thing that I find interesting about Tumblr is that it allows you to "follow" other tumblrs. If you look at my dashboard screen shot (the second picture) you can see that I'm following 8 other "Tumblrs", so whenever I sign in I can see what they have published recently. If you find something interesting you can easily "reblog it" maybe adding a comment or two or an explanation of why you found that particular item interesting. I also like that there is an RSS feed that people can subscribe to (middle bottom of the third screen shot)

Archive View

I also really like the Archive view that you and your readers can have of what you've posted (see forth screen shot above). Months where something was posted are in bold and can be clicked on. You get a picture of all the things posted in the period selected, allowing you to quick scan or find something that you're looking for. Tumblr can also be linked to Twitter and you can post to it via Ping.fm.

If you've been thinking about starting up a blog, maybe you can set up a tumblr and see how you like that before taking the plunge with the usual blogging platforms.