Is Tumblr Right for Your School?
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Tumblr: a land of memes, cat GIFs, self-indulgent ramblings and…high-quality curated content? Yes, indeed! With mainstream media as well as respected institutions such as museums and national non-profits now on board, Tumblr has become home to an increasingly sophisticated mix of content. Because of the way Tumblr works and its audience, often the unique, hard-to-find, original source material – archival documents, historic photos, artwork – rises to the top and becomes the most shared, with the most loyal fan-base. With this in mind, how can universities and colleges leverage their content – especially original, unique, highly visual or historic content – to their advantage on Tumblr? Based on four years experience curating the highly successful Art Deco Architecture blog (decoarchitecture.tumblr.com), Darling will outline the basics of Tumblr, showcase various colleges and universities who are doing Tumblr right, and how to judge whether the micro-blogging site can be a good fit for an institution’s marketing efforts.
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Is Tumblr Right for Your School?
- 1. #MCS10 Marketing, Content & Social Strategy Wendy Darling Emory University
- 2. Tumblr: a land of memes, cat GIFs, self-indulgent ramblings and… high-quality curated content? Yes, indeed!
- 3. By the Numbers: • Founded in 2007 • Acquired by Yahoo in 2013 • Hosts over 201.3 million blogs (as of Sept. 1, 2014) • More than 13 billion global page views in April 2013 • Over 85 million posts created on the site each day (as of Sept. 1, 2014) • Most popular with teen & college-age user segments; half visitor base is under 25
- 4. Features: • Publishing platform & aggregate reader • Dashboard • Reblogging & liking • Custom domain names • Question, Ask & Submit features • Posting Queue • Tags • HTML editing
- 5. Tumblr Blog Types: • Single-topic • Text blogs or articles • GIFs & Memes • Selfies • Inspirational Quotes • “Ask” • “Confession” • Random / Reblogging
- 6. Benefits: • Easy to use from browser & posting perspective • Plays well with others – Twitter, RSS, etc. • Wide variety of templates & options • Fun to explore • Community & reciprocation
- 7. Overview: • Art Deco architecture, civil engineering, interior design, plus related history & culture around the world • Begun Oct. 2010 • As of Oct. 16, 2014: • 8,209 Posts • 24,511 Followers • 1,913 Facebook fans • 653 Twitter followers decoarchitecture.tumblr.com
- 8. Traffic: • Past 12 months: 125,928 Pageviews, 55,899 Sessions • Not much, but many views are solely through Tumblr dashboard – which isn’t measured by Google Analytics • Main referrals: Google, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter decoarchitecture.tumblr.com
- 9. All-Time Hits: • Foyer, Empire State Building, NYC, New York • Elevator, Chrysler Building, NYC, New York • Helsinki Train Station, Helsinki, Finland • Whitehouse Diner, Whitehouse Station, New Jersey decoarchitecture.tumblr.com
- 10. Existing Models: • Many great, single-focus Tumblrs • Great quality content from: • National media • Museums & libraries • Non-profits • Dedicated amateurs So of course higher ed!
- 11. National Media Museums & Libraries Non-Profits • NPR npr.tumblr.com • NY Times: Lively Morgue livelymorgue.tumblr.com • National Archives: Today’s Document todaysdocument.tumblr.com • Atlanta History Center atlantahistorycenter.tumblr.com • AAMC: Research Means Hope medresearch.tumblr.com
- 12. Dedicated Amateurs • The Nifty Fifties theniftyfifties.tumblr.com • Design Is Fine www.design-is-fine.org • Valentino Vamp valentinovamp.com • My Vintage Vogue myvintagevogue.tumblr.com • Modernism In Metroland modernism-in-metroland.tumblr.com • Archi/Maps archimaps.tumblr.com • Architecture of Doom architectureofdoom.tumblr.com
- 13. Looked at higher end and what I mostly found … • Waste of time • Crickets No audience • Nothing anybody would want to share… and no one does • Navel-gazing, inward-looking • Viewbook in blog format • Reproduction of Instagram (or Instagram feed itself) • Not taking advantage of institutional resources like archives, museums, cool science images, etc.
- 14. Doing it right (1 of 2) • Use specialist archives • Books • Papers • Photos • Objects • Use general archives • Yearbooks • Vintage magazine articles • Photos • Location-specific • Neighborhood • Town /city • State
- 15. Doing it right (2 of 2) • Tie to current events / pop culture hooks • TV & movies • Books • Political issues • Objects • Science • “Sexy” or “cool” science – especially images • Geekery • Hot topics • “Science for Science’s Sake” • Offer what only YOU can offer!
- 16. Examples (1 of 2) • University of Chicago Magazine uchicagomag.tumblr.com • Colophon (UC San Diego) ucsdspecialcollections.tumblr.com • University of California Research ucresearch.tumblr.com
- 17. Examples (2 of 2) • School of Visual Arts schoolofvisualarts.tumblr.com • Our RISD (RI School of Design) our.risd.edu • MCAD Comic Art (Minneapolis) mcad-comicart.tumblr.com • MCAD Graphic Design (Minneapolis) mcad-gd.tumblr.com
- 18. #1 Choose a Focus Does your dept., school, college, university have something unique or just awesome to offer, that would work on Tumblr? What your strengths? Be specific, not generic. If you don’t have something that could work on Tumblr, then don’t set up a Tumblr.
- 19. #2 Curating Content Get a feel for what content does the best. If something does well – lots of Favorites and Shares - look for more of the same, if not the same topic, then the same quality. And always ask yourself “Would somebody want to share this?”
- 20. #3 Tumblr Tools Queue • Space out posts over time • “Set it and forget it” Tags • Enables others to find your content • Provides more context • Links your content to similar content Twitter-Posting Link accounts, tweets post when Tumblr does RSS Feed can power Facebook, show up on a web site, etc.
- 21. #4 Best Practices Credit, credit, credit Name source, link to source, link photo to source, promote source Identify Buildings, people, art, etc. should not be posted unlabeled. Helps retain context. Be egalitarian Promote other Tumblrs and blogs Be generous with crediting
- 22. #5 Audience Growth Social Media Twitter & Facebook following lead people to Tumblr. Using Tags Study the tags and pick (appropriate) ones that are hot. Similar to keywords in search research. Connect with Influencers Get featured by Tumblr (Explore), influencial bloggers in your genre …And lastly, post something so awesome it goes viral. You can’t make it happen, but if it does…
- 23. #1 – Think of The World Further the mission beyond just reaching students, alumni & locals – share the resources of your institution. Think of your audience as The World #2 Think: Niche Unless you have a HUGE campus or it’s INCREDIBLY interesting, avoid campus photos, sports teams, photos of people, or general stuff. Do stuff that’s very specifically celebrating something, like architecture or women’s history or maps or student design. Think: niche. #3 – Weigh Content Learn to judge content via some quick criteria: Is it unique? Is it cool? Is it startling? Memorable? Would people care beyond this campus?
- 24. Questions?
- 25. Wendy Darling Woodruff Health Sciences Center, Emory University wdarlin@emory.edu | @wcdarling wdarling.tumblr.com | decoarchitecture.tumblr.com www.about.me/wdarling My Poster Session Today: 3:45-5:00 pm Grand Ballroom “Using Storify for Professional Show & Tell” Related Presentation “Make That Tumblr Tumble” http://www.slideshare.net/wdarling/using-storify-for-professional-show-tell (Search Slideshare.net for “Tumblr Tumble”
Editor's Notes
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- Audience Poll/s Who has a Tumblr account? Who maintains a regular Tumblr blog? What are some Tumblr blogs you can name?
- Numbers: Founded in 2007 by David Karp and as of 2013 owned by Yahoo! As of September 1, 2014, Tumblr hosts over 201.3 million blogs and more than 90.2 billion posts in total. In April 2013 the website received more than 13 billion global page views. As of September 1, 2014, over 85 million posts were created on the site each day. The service is most popular with the teen and college-aged user segments with half of Tumblr's visitor base being under the age of 25. Source: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/tumblr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumblr
- Features: Dashboard – The dashboard is the primary tool for the typical Tumblr user. It is a live feed of recent posts from blogs that they follow. Through the dashboard, users are able to comment, reblog, and like posts from other blogs that appear on their dashboard. The dashboard allows the user to upload text posts, images, video, quotes, or links to their blog with a click of a button displayed at the top of the dashboard. Users are also able to connect their blogs to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, so whenever they make a post, it will also be sent as a tweet and a status update. Queue – Users are able to set up a schedule to delay posts that they make. They can spread their posts over several hours or even days. Tags – For each post a user creates, they are able to help their audience find posts about certain topics by adding tags. If someone were to upload a picture to their blog and wanted their viewers to find pictures, they would add the tag #picture, and their viewers could use that word to search up posts with the tag #picture. HTML editing – Tumblr allows users to edit their blog's theme HTML coding to control the appearance of their blog. Users are also able to use a custom domain name for their blog.
- Per Know Your Meme: Inspirational Photo Quotes Animated GIFs Selfies Single Topic Blogs Ask Blogs Ask X blogs are made to appear as if they are maintained by fictional characters, and other users ask questions for the characters to answer. A number of these blogs use illustrated cartoons to respond to queries. Some notable examples include Ask Gamzee , Ask Kyubey and Ask Dr. Whooves. Confession Blogs Confession Blogs: These typically involve confessions related to a fandom of some kind, such as Harry Potter and Yu-Gi-Oh. Posts typically include images where the confession is placed on a black bar that covers the eyes of a character from the fandom.
- I actually have 8 Tumblrs, but only 2 are super active. Tumblr followers from Feb 2013 – 5700…. 1 ½ yrs. later, 24,000+
- Foyer, Empire State Building, NYC, New York http://decoarchitecture.tumblr.com/post/2559169719/foyer-empire-state-building-nyc-new-york-by 4127 Notes, 12,467 Views Elevator, Chrysler Building, NYC, New York http://decoarchitecture.tumblr.com/post/2704376306/elevator-chrysler-building-nyc-new-york-you 96 Notes, 5244 Views Helsinki Train Station, Helsinki, Finland http://decoarchitecture.tumblr.com/post/36528860292/former-whitehouse-diner-whitehouse-station-new 2388 Notes, 3877 views Whitehouse Diner, Whitehouse Station, New Jersey http://decoarchitecture.tumblr.com/post/36528860292/former-whitehouse-diner-whitehouse-station-new 3878 Notes, 3380 views
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- NPR Many other NPR & other public media Tumblrs – seem to have embraced the medium: http://npr.tumblr.com/publicmediatumblrs More Examples LIFE http://life.tumblr.com/ Fresh Air http://nprfreshair.tumblr.com/ History at NIH http://historyatnih.tumblr.com/ PBS: This Day in History http://pbsthisdayinhistory.tumblr.com/ PRI: The World http://pritheworld.tumblr.com/ LBJ Time Machine http://lbjlibrary.tumblr.com/
- Additional Art Nouveau Style http://artnouveaustyle.tumblr.com/ Glad You’re Not Here! http://gladyourenothere.tumblr.com/ Miss Shirley Temple http://miss-shirley-temple.tumblr.com/ Literally Unbelievable http://literallyunbelievable.org/ Copper Metropolis http://coppermetropolis.tumblr.com/ I Love Old Magazine http://iloveoldmagazines.tumblr.com Remarkably Retro http://dtxmcclain.tumblr.com Cats In Sinks http://catsinsinks.tumblr.com/
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- Suggestions for focus: Archives Photos Original documents Rare books Prints Student artwork Faculty artwork Campus Sculptures on campus Paintings & other art installed on campus Super unique, standout architecture Academics Science imagery Politics – archive photos linking to current research, faculty interviews “On This Day” – archive photos, then link to current work, situation
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