Is Tumblr getting kind of…slow and buggy for you?
I can’t comment on my own posts (and I’ve emailed support about it) and it seems like the uploader is constantly crashing? I’m even writing my posts in Google docs before copypasting them here because it crashes so much.
Anyway I just uploaded a bunch of pics of the National Wildlife Refuge, some roadkill, some animals, and a bit of California and Hawaii to Flickr. I’ll try to queue them up for here, too, but it’s getting to be a pain.
I feel like Tumblr engagement has really decreased in the last week? Like my follower count is actually going down; it didn’t even do that when Tumblr banned adult content.
Of course I could attribute that to a lot of things; I haven’t posted a lot of good content lately, and maybe not at the appropriate times. But is anyone else experiencing this?
I don’t know if this is just my experience, maybe it’s only parts of this website that are like this and everywhere else sucks, but I wanted to say something positive about the Tumblr community:
When it comes to spreading misinformation, Tumblr isn’t much different from other websites. BUT! At least when someone points out that something is a myth, people are receptive to the new information, and then they cut down on spreading the untruths. Sometimes the debunking goes viral too.
When I correct people on Facebook, I feel like they just claim “it doesn’t matter if what I’m saying is true, it supports my opinions, which are right!” My personal experience with Tumblr is that y’all are more mature than that. Keep it up!
Hey Gang, as the kiriban nears, I’m thinking of writing a Medium-style article called “How I got 50,000 Tumblr Followers” or something like that. As usual, I thought I’d post here and see if there are any questions in particular that you’d like me to address, or if you can recommend any reading in advance.
Of course, while Medium-style articles usually have titles in the first person, the idea is that you read them to understand how you can get the same results. I don’t think I’ve seen any articles on how to get Tumblr followers, except ones that say stuff that is either super obvious or pointless (”just buy followers!!”) but I’d like to try to answer your questions if I can.
Thanks!
Tumblr has informed me that StrangeBiology turned 4 today! I remember when I first made this blog in an intern house on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Here’s some things that have happened in those 4 years:
-I made more than 1,500 posts and gained 46,000 followers
-Experimented with a ton of multimedia and social media platforms, some successful, some more of a learning experience
-I did a successful Kickstarter and published a book
-Got a Master’s in Science Journalism
-Wrote for National Geographic and the science section of PBS Newshour
-Did presentations on How to Master Tumblr for other professional journalists
Thank you for being with me this far! TBH I literally would not be where I am today if it weren’t for Tumblr. This blog and the stuff that I have learned writing it are on every job application I send out. Tumblr has generally been integral in forming my career, so thank you @staff!
So this may be impolite to ask, but I don’t know why, so I’m just going to ask anyway. Comment or put your answer in the tags. How many followers do you have?
So this is piquing my interest and “social media” is actually in my job title so that’s why I’m still curious about how Tumblr works and how people use it. Anyway the interesting thing about a lot of responses to this post is that a lot of them say something like “N, or 1/3 N if you don’t count the pr/ 0n bots” and one “do you filter for pr /0n bots?”
I did a presentation on Tumblr for the DC Science Writers Association! Feel free to check it out yourself, and use this if you want to show your own colleagues/classmates/whoever how Tumblr works. It’s not really specific to science blogging, but you can edit it if you want. This starts with the basics and includes some background on Tumblr culture, what makes a successful post, specifics on how to make an animated gif in photoshop, and your options for monetizing a blog.
Sadly there isn’t a lot of data on Tumblr, so this is sort of just my own analysis based on my experience of three years Tumbling, 1,400 posts, and 41,000 followers.
I am doing a session on using Tumblr for the DC Science Writers Association! Most of what I’ll be talking about comes from experience, because I’m sort of disappointed that I can’t find any real, useful data about Tumblr. All I can really find is “how to cheat yourself into thinking that you’re popular by purchasing followers.” Also, I have some questions that I don’t understand–can anyone here explain these to me?
1. Why do people unfollow blogs when they’re inactive? Isn’t that like saying “you are not on my dash often enough…so to address that I’ll make it so you’re never on my dash?” Is it because they’re afraid they’ll hit the follow limit? That’s 5,000 blogs??
2. Why do people deactivate once they get a popular post? I know I’m not the only one who’s wondered this. The only answer I’ve seen is “because they get hate once they have notes” but 1. I have a post with over half a million notes and haven’t received hate over it and 2. Why not just turn off asks or at least anons? Or turn off notifications for that post, or just leave it and make another blog? I also know the story of Pizza, but there’s no way everyone has the same experience.
3. Why do some potentially triggering tags start with tw:? I know it stands for trigger warning. Isn’t it easier for people to tumblr savior the triggering or disliked word itself, without the TW? This I really want to know because if there’s a good reason for it then I can start doing it. But if there’s no reason then I sort of don’t want to have to start deciding which content is potentially triggering and which isn’t.
4. Do people actually find content by looking at the tags? I found “tracked tags” to be completely useless before, but now that they’re on my dash, I find them completely annoying, as the same posts come up over and over. Often, my own posts show up. Don’t you find most of your content via reblogs? Maybe tags are more important when you’re first starting your blog?
Let me know if you have the answers to these questions…or if you have another question that you want me to address in the discussion! The workshop is on Tuesday, November 29th 6:30-8:30pm, in Washington, DC, but we haven’t decided a venue yet, if you want to come! (It’s free but DC Science Writers Association members get priority)
You can check out the ones listed on Tumblr’s Spotlight feature in the Science section.
sweetdeffectt asked:
Everyone who enjoys the “educationally bizarre“ and doesn’t mind TW’s for blood, graphic mutations, injuries and the like, check out sweetdeffectt!
These posts are the kind of things I’d reblog all the time if I wasn’t concerned about passing the Cheerio’s test. ;)
Sadly, there are several educational blogs that tend to get reported and deleted. congenitaldisease, (TW: Death, murder, blood, etc) aka Emily, is a popular true crime blogger who’s Tumblr has been deleted many times. Other crime, oddity, and medical blogs such as malformalady (TW: mutants, injuries, blood, etc) have been reported as well. Even though there are plenty of warnings, including tags, and even though these blogs are educational and reflective of reality, and no one who follows them is likely to be surprised when they post their type of content, Tumblr has restrictions…
I love Tumblr as a communal sharing platform, and the mods have a right to police it with their community standards. But that’s one thing that sucks about hosting a blog on a platform such as this; rules that restrict your speech. I’ve put a lot of time into this blog, and even though I have my own URL (strangebio.com) it sucks that staff could delete it any time they want. It also sucks that there is a lot of cool content for which I’d have to go offsite, and I can’t have it on my dash because of the admins’ policies!
Anyway if you want to provide an extra layer of warning to your blog, here is a way to darken the page and pop up a warning message. If you’re worried about your blog getting deleted, back it up with revert.io. Also, you can e-mail the mods and try to get the ban reversed if that does happen (they have reversed bans before.) And don’t forget to check out sweetdeffectt if you’re interested in more shocking content! :)
boar-q-pine asked:
Ooooh! I’m so flattered you would think of me to ask!
It’s important to make it clear what your blog is about so that people who want it can find it. They say if you don’t use Search Engine Optimization properly, that’s like writing your blog on a piece of paper, putting it in a drawer, and then locking the drawer. Because no one will ever see it. (On tumblr it’s a little different though, and we use tags and community as our meritocracy more so than SEO. Still, better SEO means more visibility and even potential longevity for your content’s popularity.)
When I see blogs titled stuff like “BonesandBucks” or “JobsinJournalism” I mash the follow button hard, because those are things I like. Having an appropriate icon is good as well. It’s real nice to be able to tell people, especially in real life, a blog name and its description in the same few words.
It is a little bad to change your URL (any links to your posts will be broken) so it is worth giving it some thought before committing. On the other hand, the best name will probably be one that comes to you quite easily.
If you’re looking for more advice on blogging, this is the most important thing that I myself have learned:
I’ve read plenty of articles on blogging, even most of a book until I figured that a lot of the advice was just common sense codified. And there are certainly ways to improve your readership, by posting more, setting a queue, writing catchy headlines (if that was more of a thing on tumblr) posting at times when people are online, etc. But a lot of that stuff is kind of like shaving your eyebrows to make yourself more aerodynamic for a race. Most of your concern should be about your actual speed.
By far, by an enormous margin the most important thing is to have good content. And the only way to have good content is to blog what you love. Pull from a bunch of sources, especially the ones that you already have or follow.
If you’re looking for resources on the specific topics of oddities, animals, and natural history, I recommend checking the tags on tumblr, perhaps some reddit boards, and scienceblogs.com. A lot of major news outlets aren’t on tumblr yet, so I used to follow them using a feed reader but now I just like their facebook pages. (Or twitter if that’s what you frequent) Also, here is a list of books I recommend.
OK, I hope that’s what you meant! Thanks for reaching out! I’m always happy to answer more questions, so let me know if you need help! :)
Strange Biology now has over 1,000 followers! In celebration of this kiriban, enjoy a disjointed post about the past, present and future of this blog.
Strange Biology started after I applied for an internship at huffingtonpost as their crime and weird news intern. That’s pretty much the perfect job for me, but I didn’t get it. I thought if I had a nice blog then I could apply for it the next year and show them how internet-savvy I was, but that year they stopped offering the internship.
When they asked me for my blog URL during the interview, I just gave them the one I had started for a class. It had some of my best writing on it but it didn’t have a very coherent theme. I thought I should make a Tumblr because of the site’s accessibility, searchability, pace and community.
I started a dummy blog about which I told no one, with no theme or layout. When I found that most of my good posts had something to do with weird biology, I made a more serious attempt at a blog, and here it is. I do put some of the skills I learned here on résumés, such as gif creation. Yes, really, and I think digital media skills were some of the best things I had to contribute when interviewing at Google.
Today I love blogging, because it is something of a polished repository for all the crazy stuff I learn about biology. A few times when I’ve needed a visual aid, I would just tell people “Go to strangebiology.tumblr.com/tagged/BBC and you’ll see what I mean!” Plus, when I would share articles on facebook or talk about dinosaurs in real life, well, I have more to say than most people outside the Strange Biology constituency care to hear. The only thing I wish was different was that I’d like to have more feedback, contributions, and strange biology questions!
Will this blog ever play a part in getting me a job? Well, I think it has really helped prove that I really am into weird news and biology, even though anyone who has known me IRL for more than 10 minutes can attest to that. I have seen some job postings for oddity bloggers and natural history writers, and StrangeBiology was probably the best evidence to prove my suitability for the position, second only to my degree in journalism and my internships. But at least four times I have gotten responses saying “I’m sorry, but it turns out we don’t have the funding for that position.” Otherwise no response at all. So no, it’s not likely that I’ll ever get a job at all related to Strange Biology.
But I am slowly and cautiously considering doing a book, if there’s any interest. (Fill out the survey, win a skull!)
Now let’s take a moment to look back on some of my most popular posts:
The aftermath of an epic puma vs. mountain goat battle
The lake that doesn’t turn animals to stone
Elk battle gone wrong: This is by far my most popular post! If you reblog it, please don’t write that this is a picture of elk and not deer. Because elk are deer.
And here are some of my favorite posts which weren’t popular:
A deer with severely deformed antlers
Don’t mess with Mama’s fawn (warning for animal violence)
The most amazing headgear in zoological history
Murder of Starblade (not related to Strange Biology, but my most in-depth look at autism and education via the murder of a student.)
All the posts about Greek mythology and how it informs our mutant names (Summary post)
Want more? Check the archive.
Hope that wasn’t too boring for you. Thank you for reading and following! I have a ton more stuff to write about, so don’t go away! Coming up: The mammoth ivory trade, dinosaur tourism, fusing of humans and machines, and the Loch Ness Monster.
