What is Tumblr? Exploring the World of Microblogging

In an era dominated by various social media platforms, what exactly is Tumblr? Tumblr is a vast network of millions of personal, user-generated websites. It blends elements of a blogging platform (such as Wordpress or Blogger) with a social network, allowing users to create and share their own original content. Whether it’s written posts, photos, videos, or links to other websites, you can share these with friends and followers alike.

Ready to launch your own blog on Tumblr? It’s easier than you think! In this guide, we’ll delve deeper into what Tumblr is, the kind of users it attracts, and how to turn your Tumblr microblog into a creative and social success!

Tumblr: A Unique Experience in Social Media

Tumblr describes itself as a platform for short-form microblogging, or tumblelogging, a term that existed even before Tumblr. Launched in 2007 by Internet entrepreneur David Karp and lead designer Marco Arment, the platform quickly gained popularity, attracting 75,000 users within two weeks. In 2009, it acquired the third-party app Tumblrette, which simplified Tumblr's interface for iPhone users. The Tumblr app is now available on all major smartphones.

In recent times, Tumblr’s traffic trends have revealed a microblogging platform in the midst of change, adapting to shifting online habits and policy decisions. With 135 million active users worldwide, Tumblr remains an influential force in the social media world, despite facing fluctuations in digital interaction.

The platform's decision to ban adult content in 2018 marked a key turning point, resulting in a significant decrease in traffic — from a peak of 521 million visitors in 2018 to 213 million in 2023. Nevertheless, Tumblr has retained its position, ranking as the 103rd most visited website globally as of April 2023, with 222.7 million visitors.

Getting Started with Tumblr

Creating a Tumblr account is as simple as setting up an e-mail account. Just sign up with your e-mail address and password, select a username, and you’re ready to start blogging. (Your username doesn’t need to match the title of your blog, by the way.)

On your blog’s entry page (which you can access via the Dashboard, which we’ll explore further soon), Tumblr helps guide the blogging process with icons for text, photo, quotes, links, chat, audio, or video. Select the appropriate option, input your content, and hit 'post' (or schedule it, or set a specific date for posting).

You can create multiple blogs on Tumblr. But Tumblr is also a social network, where users connect by following other blogs. Whenever an author posts new content—be it an article, photo, video, or shared item—it appears on the Dashboards of those who follow them.

The Dashboard serves as the central hub of Tumblr. Much like a Facebook news feed, it displays all activity from the user and their followed blogs in reverse chronological order (with the most recent posts appearing at the top). (Tip: You can scroll through posts quickly by pressing the "J" key while in the Dashboard.)

Notes Help Foster Connections Among Users

From the Dashboard, users can show appreciation for posts they like by giving "notes" in a variety of ways:

Each post on the Dashboard has a small box showing a number, which represents how many notes the post has received. Clicking this number reveals which users interacted with the post and in what way. (A fun way to discover new blogs is by checking out the sites of people who liked the same content as you.)

The sidebar displays how many posts the user has liked, along with the blogs they follow and suggestions for other blogs that might be of interest. (For a small fee, Tumblr offers to feature your blog either on the sidebar or at the top of subscribers' dashboards for a limited time.)

Your blog may have great content, but what about its design? Keep reading to find out more about customization options.

Tumblr Themes, Backgrounds, and Layout Customization

On the Dashboard, Tumblr users can view the blogs they follow, along with their own posts and notes. However, the public face of a Tumblr blog is visible to the entire Internet (unless privacy settings are applied), meaning it requires some aesthetic upkeep. Users can fully personalize their Tumblr sites, adjusting colors, fonts, image display styles, module placements, and more. Tumblr makes it easy for non-coders to customize their site by offering dozens of free themes, which are pre-designed layouts known as "Themes."

To set up a theme, start by visiting your site's page on the Dashboard. Then, open the "customize theme" module. Tumblr presents a drop-down menu with a variety of themes, complete with thumbnail previews, many of which are created by other Tumblr users. Depending on the purpose of your blog, there are multiple theme options. For example, a blogger can select a single, double, or triple-column layout (ideal for text-heavy or image-light posts), or a high-resolution theme (perfect for photo-centric blogs). While most themes are free, Tumblr also offers "premium" paid themes.

Once you've found a theme you like, installing it is as easy as clicking a button. With a sample page to work from, you can start experimenting with the customizable options. From here, you can adjust the background (whether it's a color, pattern, or custom image), change the text size and color, update the site’s title and description, and even control how many past entries appear on your page. You can also inject your own code to make additional tweaks. Feel free to play around with any setting here.

For those with more coding experience, or for bloggers looking to create a highly customized page, all themes and customization features can be modified through HTML editing. But that's not all you can do on Tumblr — music can also be added to your posts. Keep reading to learn how.

How to Add Music to Your Tumblr Posts

A unique feature of Tumblr is that it allows users to personalize their blogs and posts in almost any way imaginable. While photos and text are central to the Tumblr experience, music can also be integrated into a Tumblr page, giving users the ability to mix different forms of media. This is what sets Tumblr apart from other social media platforms.

The simplest way to share music is by creating an audio post. On your Tumblr dashboard, you'll find various post options, including text, video, chat, and audio. Just click on the icon that looks like a pair of purple headphones, and you'll be taken to a new post window. Instead of a title space, Tumblr gives you a bar with a magnifying glass icon, where you can either upload an MP3 file (up to 10 MB) from your computer or paste the URL of a song from the web.

Tumblr has teamed up with Spotify and SoundCloud to bring music integration to posts. Spotify offers both a free and premium service, giving access to a vast library of songs from both major and independent labels. Meanwhile, SoundCloud is home to a wealth of user-uploaded tracks, including music from unsigned or indie artists. Both platforms make it easy to share songs by providing a web address that can be directly added to Tumblr's audio post window.

Tumblr also allows for autoplay background music across the user's entire blog. When enabled, the music automatically plays on every page of the blog. This is achieved through a third-party plugin where the user uploads their chosen track. The plugin generates HTML code, which is then placed into Tumblr's theme customization settings. Users can even add an option to opt-out of autoplay on their blogs. For those who prefer autoplay on specific posts, the HTML editing option can be used while composing individual posts.