Layman's explanation of Tumblr

Social media plays a major role in how we communicate, share files and photos, do business, and meet new people. We have witnessed the power of social media through the rise of YouTube stars and videos like KONY 2012, which had the ability to bring people from all over the world together in an online community for change. We have watched movies about Facebook (The Social Network), started making phone calls and conducting meetings over Skype, and watched celebrities repeatedly stick a foot in their mouths using Twitter.

It has come to the point where there are so many different social media platforms out there, we are beginning to lose track. And for those of us who never quite latched on to the social media bandwagon in the first place (which has now obviously proven to be much more than just a bandwagon!) this article is for you. So you can finally learn your tweets from your pokes, your hashtags from your diggs.

Part six of our series explains the basics of Tumblr below. While tomorrow we will be explaining Digg.TumblrSummary: A microblog and social network that allows users to post text, images, video, and share via reblogging.

Background: Tumblr was launched on April 27, 2007 by David Karp. Marco Arment served as the lead developer, though he left the company in 2010 to focus on Instapaper.

Within two weeks of its launch, the service had gained 75,000 users. As of February 27, 2012, Tumblr had over 46.2 million blogs and more than 18 billion total posts.

Use it for: sharing your blog with a wider audience and following the blogs of others.

From a business perspective: A great platform to share content and links with a younger demographic of bloggers.

The images tend to garner traffic, but most of it comes from within Tumblr.

The BasicsDashShort for dashboard, this is the main news feed of the Tumblr blogs you follow.

HeartUsers can like posts by clicking on the heart symbol above the post in their dash.

TagA categorization system for posts that allows users to find new blogs.

ReblogUsers can reblog posts they enjoy to their own blog.

Getting Started

• Tumblr requires a bit more planning and designing than the other social media sites. You need to choose a theme when creating a profile.
• Begin to post. The most popular Tumblr posts often have images associated with them.
• When you create posts on Tumblr you can have them instantly shared with your Twitter and Facebook feeds.
• Follows other blogs from friends, clients, customers, and fellow businesses.