How to navigate Tumblr

Tumblr.com is one of the most popular blogging websites currently out there and is home to over 371 million different blogs. Quoted from the website:

"We made it really, really simple for people to make a blog and put whatever they want on it. Stories, photos, GIFs, TV shows, links, quips, dumb jokes, smart jokes, Spotify tracks, mp3s, videos, fashion, art, deep stuff. Tumblr is 371 million different blogs, filled with literally whatever."

You can make your blog to be about anything from curating posts filled with nothing but pictures of clowns to posting about your band's latest tracks off of soundcloud, and beyond.

## Signing up

When navigating onto the site, the background will usually be an image of a popular picture or image that changes whenever you go to either sign up or log in. It defaults to asking you to login but if you look at the upper right hand corner of the screen you will see the button labeled 'Sign Up' which, when clicked will direct you to another page.

There will be two options on this screen "Get Started" and "Log in", along with an option to see what posts are trending. For the purposes of this section you will want to click the "Get Started" option. On this page it will ask you for an email address as well as to create a password and a username. It can be difficult to find a username not already taken, but, you do have the option to change it later should you find another name you want to use or grow tired of your current one. Make sure to use an email address you can access easily.

On the next page it will ask you your age (as you have to be 13 years or older to sign up to Tumblr) and a box to check asking if you've read the terms and conditions. Proceeding that, there will be a reCAPTCHA to prove you aren't a robot. Once completing the reCAPTCHA, the page will automatically load onto your Dashboard, the area where posts appear from blogs that you follow, are recommended for you, or posts that you make yourself.

Congratulations, you now have a tumblr blog!

## Following blogs

After creating your blog and verifying your email address, you will be free to navigate tumblr as you please. You will automatically be 'following' the Staff tumblr blog, the official blog where updates on the site are given though you are free to unfollow this blog (and any other blogs) at any time you wish. To see your following list, click the icon on the upper right corner that looks like a little person. There will be a list of options, with 'Following' being the second one with a smaller, grayed out number to the right of it showing how many blogs you follow.

From the get go, there will be blogs recommended to you to the right of the screen that become more curated once you start following tags, liking posts, etc. To follow a user, click on their username which will navigate you to their blog. In the upper right hand corner their is a button labeled 'Follow'. Once clicking that, the blogs latest posts will now appear on your Dashboard. You can follow no more than 200 blogs per day and no more than 5,000 blogs in total. Once you follow 5,000 blogs, you would have to unfollow some blogs to start following additional blogs.

## Searching Tags

On tumblr you can find content on just about anything, usually through the tagging system. Just next to the lowercase t on the upper left hand corner, there is a blank bar with a magnifying glass. This is the search bar and typing in some of your interests, for example, 'Harry Potter' will pull up the top trending posts or the newest posts made with 'Harry Potter' in the first five tags. Using this system you can start to find blogs that cater to your likes and interests and start filling your dashboard with posts and blogs that you'd like to see on a regular basis. You can also 'follow' tags so as to keep up with new content being added to the tag.

## Making, liking, and reblogging posts

On your dashboard, there is a row of colorful icons with labels underneath them. In order from left to right they are: Text, Photo, Quote, Link, Chat, Audio, and Video. These are all the different types of posts that you can make on tumblr with instructions on how to format and make the posts readily available when you click the options for the first time.

There are also two ways to 'save' posts you see and like for later. The first option is to 'like' the post, which is simply clicking on the heart icon bottom right hand corner of the post. You know you've been successful if the heart goes from being transparent to a filled red color. To find posts that you've 'liked' in the past, simply go to the same icon of the little person that you clicked in order to find the list of who you were following. The first option is 'Likes' which navigates you to an area to scroll through all the posts in which you've hit the heart icon.

The second option is to reblog the post so that it is view-able not only on your dashboard but on your blog page itself. To do this, all you have to do is click the icon the resembles a recycling icon. The post will pop up and you have the option to add a caption or add tags of your own in order to better organize posts on your blog. Once adding (or not adding) whatever text you'd like, simply click the 'reblog' button. There will be a notification on the bottom right hand corner if the reblog has been successful or not (usually it is unless there is a connection error) and once it is successful, the post on now both on your dashboard and on your blog.