Tumbling Through Tumblr

                                         

If you would have asked me what blogging was prior to taking a class on social media and businesses, I would have told you Tumblr is what I think of. I was very unfamiliar with blogging as a whole and only familiar with a few social media sites, and Tumblr definitely was not on the list. I have realized that Tumblr extends beyond the norm and is a “microblog”.

Tumblr prides itself on being able to quickly share anything, whether it be photos, videos, links, music, quotes, or anything you can think of and from your mobile device, laptop, tablet or other forms.  As of today, Tumblr has 108.4 million blogs with 50.9 billion blog posts. After doing more research, I learned that a 26 year old runs the social media site, named David Karp. As a current twenty year old, I cannot even begin to imagine running a highly successful social networking site, so that fun fact blew my mind.

Another fact I came across while researching Tumblr was that the social networking site was actually acquired by Yahoo. There is a lot of negative media around the recent Yahoo acquisition and concern that Yahoo will change the platform of Tumblr and make it “uncool”. Tumblr could also be a saving grace for Yahoo in the sense that the social networking site already attracts millions of viewers and bloggers. This acquisition could very much bring Yahoo back in to the spotlight and give it some positive media attention.

Once logging on to Tumblr, I was amazed at how aesthetically pleasing the site is to the eye. It has a very modern layout and was by far the easiest way to create a profile and maneuver around from the other social media platforms I have come across. The various blogs I visited ranged from well kept, gorgeously laid out and written to literally the sloppiest, ill-kept profiles. I was surprised at how interesting the pages for businesses seemed.

Businesses that I saw actually had profiles with products, gifs, photos, company news, and more. It seemed that businesses had hired professionals because the Tumblr pages looked very professionally kept. I didn’t feel like there was a lot of opportunities to interact with viewers comparatively to other social media sites like Twitter or Facebook, which is something I would consider a flaw in the design of Tumblr in regards to business.