But it is hard to be an influencer on Tumblr
Photo from: https://pixabay.com/vectors/elon-musk-twitter-owner-investor-7159200/
I started sharing videos in Portuguese on Tumblr in 2014.
I didn’t have a focus and I didn’t want to make money from it. I just wanted to inspire other people with financial freedom content.
Well, after so long and about 400 posts later, I reached almost 3,000 followers. And sometimes new followers come every day and many share posts, even if sometimes I don’t build anything for days.
It was from this experience with Tumblr that I learned that network effects happen in all social networks. Time and showing up every week are the secrets of online success.
Tumblr is coming out of limbo
When I joined Tumblr in 2014, seven years after its inception, it was a fledgling microblog site with a friendly feel.
I made so many friends online. Everyone got along. It was creative. It was inspiring. We saw people dating and then getting married. Like many users, though, over time I migrated to Twitter. After Elon Musk completed the purchase of Twitter in October, I decided to return to Tumblr.
The reception back home was not the same.
I made four new posts, and then I checked my user panel and kept seeing posts from other people talking about Twitter. I was like, I don’t need this energy and vibe at all.
The good news is that Tumblr is seeing an increase in active users following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.
In a tweet, the chief executive of Automattic the company that controls Tumblr reported a 58% increase in Tumblr iOS app downloads and a 57% increase in Android users in the first week of November.
In December 2017, Tumblr banned adult content. On November 1, 2022, Tumblr changed its community guidelines to allow nudity on the platform. I’m seeing long-silent blogs being reactivated after years of dormancy and new ones popping up.
It’s hard to be an online influencer on Tumblr
There is no public follower count and reblogs (similar to retweets) are essential to increase visibility and support other creators on the platform.
While Twitter has the powerful “Trending” feature, Tumblr has been a haven for fandoms. But also the niche user base that includes fanfiction writers, artists, role-players, and other creatives.
The differences between Twitter and Tumblr may prevent the latter from serving as a true replacement for the former.
Twitter has been a platform where celebrities, politicians, social influencers, brands, journalists, and other public-facing entities thrive. Tumblr, with its aforementioned lack of follower count, typically has an anonymous user base and focuses on collective user experience over individual success. It is not the kind of place that amplifies personalities.
There is a popular belief on Tumblr that brands and celebrities simply don’t do well on platforms like Tumblr.
It’s hard to be a successful influencer.
Because you don’t have access to the information that would make you look important. Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok, on the other hand, have tutorials all over the internet on how to do well and make money online.
Still, even non-celebrities may find Tumblr’s setup too different from Twitter to serve as a successor.
Tumblr is a great place for you
Because Tumblr is not like WordPress or Blogger.
Tumblr is different. Simpler. More connected. More multimedia. Many users appreciate the simplicity with which you can start blogging.
It doesn’t take much internet affinity to make a Tumblr blog. Whether it’s a photo, a quote, a video, or a conversation history. Everything is formatted appropriately. Moreover, Tumblr has managed to stand between Twitter and Facebook and still fill the small gap in the market.
So it is possible to follow other blogs without having to follow them back. There is a reblog function and a news feed.
Bottom line: Tumblr combines the functions of Twitter, WordPress, and Facebook into one service.
While you are still updating various plugins on a self-hosted WordPress blog, on Tumblr everything is simpler. With one Tumblr account, you can set up any number of blogs. If you have a funny idea, it can be implemented quickly and spread virally through reblogs better than on any other common platform.
Tumblr is not just a blogging system, but a mix of publishing platforms and online social networks.
The upshot
Tumblr has been fighting for a status that previously only WordPress and Blogger had. Because Tumblr is no longer associated with the blogging tool for hipsters (“a little fashion, a little photo, and cool quotes”), but has become accepted in the social networking industry. And rightly so.
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