Tumblr is a relatively new blogging platform that lets you post short blurbs of text, links, pictures, quotes, audio and video quickly and easily. Blogs that follow this format are called ‘tumblelogs’.

In essence, Tumblr and tumblelogs remind us of the early stages of blogging, when bloggers acted mostly as editors, pointing readers to interesting resouces and adding short comments to put them in the right context.

How does Tumblr Work?

In Tumblr, each style of post has it’s own posting mechanism, which makes posting anything really easy:

For example, if you want to post a quote, you click on the ‘quote’ icon and get a short form where you can paste the quote and the attribution.

If you want to post a picture, you click on the ‘photo’ icon and get a short form that asks you to browse through your hard drive or type in the picture’s URL.

To make posting even easier, Tumblr offers the option to add a bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar. The bookmarklet (see screenshot below) lets you post content quickly, without having to go to your Tumblr control panel every time.

You can also post content from your mobile phone and IM, which makes Tumblr ideal for people on the go.

Another neat feature of Tumblr is that you can publish your Tumblr blog on your own domain or sub-domain.

Why is Tumblr Becoming Popular?

Some people just want a quick and easy way to post and share things. For them, full-featured content management systems like Wordpress or Typepad are too complicated, time consuming and difficult to maintain, and more suitable for long, editorial-style posts. Tumblr and its back-to-basics approach is a godsend for this segment of the blogging market.

Where Does Tumblr Fit in Your Content Strategy?

Tumblr (like Twitter and other micro blogging platforms) is just another way to expose readers to your brand. Sometimes, people don’t feel like reading long, in-depth articles, and just want to consume content in small, manageable chunks (John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing calls this trend ‘content snacking’).

Tumblr can also become another important tool in your personal branding strategy: Tumblr is ideal for personal blogs, where you can freely talk about non-business topics.

For example, I have many interests that don’t fit the topic of my business blog: traveling, cars, food and personal finance. My Tumblr blog lets me talk about those subjects, so that I can keep my business blog focused on branding, social media and small business.

The Icing on the Cake: Publishing Feeds

Tumblr lets you publish up to five RSS feeds, so the articles you write in your business blog can also be featured in your Tumblr blog with no extra effort on your part. Sharing your professional content in your personal blog is a plus, as it makes it more interesting.

Some bloggers that I read often who have also created Tumblr blogs are: John Jantsch, from Duct Tape Marketing (his Tumblr blog is cleverly named Duct Tape Strips ); Lee Lefever, owner of CommonCraft and creator of the popular In Plain English explanation-video series; Tina Su , the multi-talented blogger behind the Think Simple Now motivational blog, and blogging guru Skellie , author of Skelliwag and Anywired.

The Future of Tumblr

Tumblr plans to have 1 million users by the end of 2008, still a far cry from a Facebook or a Wordpress, but not too bad for two kids following a passion on a shoestring budget, working from a sub-let office in New York.

As far as features are concerned, it is rumored that Tumblr will soon offer a way to add comments and tags to each post. In my opinion, they should probably just add tags and leave it at that. A big part of Tumblr’s appeal is its simplicity. It would be a shame to see it ruined by feature creap.

To give Tumblr a try, go to http://www.tumblr.com.

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