Tumblr Unveils Major Redesign to Attract Users from Twitter and Reddit

Twitter and Reddit have faced challenges in recent times, with other social media platforms eagerly eyeing their users. Now, Tumblr is aiming to seize the opportunity by undergoing a makeover. For those unfamiliar with Tumblr, here’s a brief history. In the 2010s, it was a major player alongside Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. However, its heavy emphasis on customization led to a steep learning curve for users looking to build a platform and community. In 2018, when Tumblr announced a ban on pornographic content, many loyal users felt abandoned, causing the platform to become niche. However, according to an official blog post by Tumblr staff, significant changes are on the horizon.

The Tumblr staff blog published a lengthy post saying, “For Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr isn’t easy to use. Historically, we’ve expected users to curate their feeds and rely on curating their experiences.” But this expectation creates friction in the user experience and serves only a small part of our audience.

“For Tumblr’s continued success, we must prioritize fostering a seamless connection between people and content. This means attracting and retaining new users and creators, fostering their growth, and regularly engaging with the platform,” the post added.

Tumblr redesigns platform, adds new features

So what exactly is Tumblr up to? The post gives us a glimpse of it in a section called “Diagnosis.” The microblogging platform admits that its main problem is a complicated user experience, and has issued a list of guidelines it plans to follow in order to make a radical change. These are as follows:

1. Expand the ways new users can find and sign up for Tumblr.

2. Provide quality content at every app launch.

3. Make it easier for users to participate in discussions.

4. Maintain and grow our content creator base.

5. Create templates that encourage users to return to Tumblr.

6. Improve platform performance, stability and quality.

Basically, Tumblr is changing the way people log into the platform, find new content, create their own page, and interact with other users. This means that the platform regulates each one by itself.

Some of the platform’s biggest calls to action include improving SEO practices and bringing it up to industry standards; improving algorithmic classification capabilities; change currently confusing answers and reblogs; it is easier for users to follow the conversation; improving the feedback loop; and adding a new co-creation feature where multiple users can collaborate on a project.

Tumblr has also added that it plans to experiment a lot to find the best solution for each problem, so users should expect to see a lot of new “beta” features soon.

The strategy is well in place, but Threads may have attracted most of the disillusioned Twitter and Reddit users so far, and Tumblr may have left it too late. But these are early days, and the jury is still out on who will actually win.