I’ve always prided myself on being reasonably up to date (though not, perhaps, on the cutting edge), particularly for a gal who didn’t grow up with technology. I got a computer pretty early on for a nongeek (back in the days when an app was called software, y’all), was quickly nudged onto social media by the Boy, and enjoy, most days, the bounty of information available on the Internet. I can’t imagine doing my job without it.
Still, things are getting away from me. The longer I am out here—out away from Corporate America, in my quiet but (ahem) swanky second-floor office in the pink house with the green door—the more I question my ability to comment intelligently on anything that affects our industry.
Which is to say, the book biz. The writing and publishing and marketing thereof.**
We’ve talked quite a bit here (see below) about marketing books and the uses of social media. And when I read this article, it just struck me as something, well, revolutionary. Here’s a piece of it:
The Tumblr reblog holds a special kind of power. It’s the way that posts are shared on the platform—if, for example, I like your photograph, or link, or video, or 5,000-word analysis of our favorite TV show, I can re-post it on my own Tumblr, with or without additions, your original post fully intact. It will appear on my blog and on my followers’ dashboard feeds; if one of them reblogs it, and a few of her friends do the same, your post will gain momentum—it might even snowball to popularity. Posts on Facebook can slip into the ether, the whims of finicky algorithms; on Twitter, arguably the most temporal social network, your 140 characters have a matter of minutes, even seconds, before they drop out of sight down the infinite stream. On Tumblr, posts spread outward in networks of webs. They have drastically longer shelf lives than their counterparts on other social media outlets — reblogs, which make up 90% of Tumblr content, can make the rounds for weeks, months, even years, and with a tag search and a reblog or two, they can spring to life long after they’re published. In other corners of the Internet, you broadcast and consume information; on Tumblr, a platform built on mutual interests and passions, all that sustained sharing helps build real digital communities, one reblog at a time. (Emphasis mine.)
Oh, the rest of the article is fantastic, too, about the Tumblr Reblog Book Club. But just think about this one paragraph.
I sure did. The “longer shelf life,” in this time of disposable content*** and short attention spans, got my attention. If you’ve got a book or a brand or an image and you’re looking to add to your audience, your tribe, longer shelf life is something you’ll be interested in. I figured if I reblogged my own (lovely, WordPress-powered) blog posts at Tumblr, world domination was within my grasp at last.
So I [opened?] [signed up for?] [created?] a Tumblr of my own. I’d resisted this in the past. There are Tumblr bloggers I’d wanted to follow, but short of bookmarking and manually checking, there was no such thing as “subscribe” without being a Tumblr user. And there certainly was no such thing as leaving a comment, because it’s pretty much a closed network; you can’t comment unless you have an account. Or whatever the lingo is for this activity. Which should tell you something.
Here’s my true confession: after I Tumblr’d up, I realized I had no idea how to navigate within it. I can barely find my own “page.” This is not Tumblr’s fault, I think. I just don’t “get” the Tumblr interface. It’s not intuitive for me. I need an instruction manual. (Remember those? Gosh, I love a nice manual, a good index. But Tumblr doesn’t come with one.) I have trouble with some of the advanced features on my iPhone too. 🙂
But don’t let that stop you. You’re probably younger than me, and smarter. And I think you should consider Tumblr. I still have every intention of reposting my blog archives, when I figure it out or find a teacher. Let me know how you do.
The See Below:
Keeping Up With the Joneses
But It’s Just More Work
Keeping Up With My Industry
My Love-Hate Relationship With Twitter
Social Media for Writers
My Very Last Twitter Post (Maybe)
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
* From “The Times They Are a-Changin’” by Bob Dylan, 1964.
** Actually, I don’t know if anyone can (and still have a life).
*** Remember when cable television was new? Media commentators, with much hand-wringing, noted there was now an insatiable demand for content. And it was true. So we’d tune in to the programming on the local channel—just for entertainment—and laugh ourselves senseless. Great fun. I no longer find amusing the sheer badness of the writing content that fills the interwebs, but I have hope that this will shake itself out over time—just as many of those once-empty channels filled up with some really spectacular programming and many of those once-awful programs were forced out by great competition.
Tweet: Technology: I can’t imagine doing my job without it.
Tweet: I’ve always prided myself on being reasonably up to date, but Tumblr broke me.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”