Twitter and Reddit in turmoil, Tumblr plans MASSIVE redesign to lure their subscribers

Twitter, for a long time and Reddit recently, have been going through tough times and other social media platforms are eyeing their subscribers greedily! Now, Tumblr wants to eat its lunch and for that, it is looking at a makeover. So, for those who are not familiar with Tumblr, a bit of history. First of all, you should know that it used to be one of the big social media platforms alongside Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in the 2010s. However, the microblogging platform lost its steam due to its customization-heavy home pages that created a steep learning curve for anyone that wanted to build a platform and create a community. Then, in 2018, after Tumblr announced it would not allow any pornographic content, a big part of its loyal user base felt abandoned. Ever since then, it has existed as a niche platform. But things are about to change, claims an official blog post by Tumblr staff.

Tumblr staff blog posted a long post where it said, “In order 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 is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience”.

“To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform,” the post added.

Tumblr to redesign platform, add new features

So, what exactly is Tumblr planning? The post gives us a glimpse into that in a section called “The Diagnosis”. Admitting that its main issue lies in the complicated user experience, the microblogging platform has given a list of guidelines it will be adhering to, in order to bring about the drastic change. These are as follows:

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

2. Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

3. Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

4. Retain and grow our creator base.

5. Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

6. Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

In essence, Tumblr will change the way people sign up for the platform, discover new content, set up their own page as well as interact with other users. This means the platform will be tweaking every single aspect of itself.

Some of the biggest call-to-action for the platform include improving the SEO practices and bringing it up to industry standards; improving the algorithmic ranking capabilities; changing the currently confusing replies and reblogs; making it easier for users to follow the conversation; improving the feedback loop; and adding a new co-create feature where multiple users can collaborate on a project.

Tumblr has also added that it will be experimenting a lot in order to figure out the best solution for each problem, so users should expect to see a lot of new ‘beta’ features coming up soon.

The strategy is very much in place, but Threads may well have lured most of the disappointed Twitter and Reddit users by now and Tumblr may well have left it too late. But these are early days and the jury is still out on who will actually win.