Better Know a FlashFWD Honoree: Tumblr

By Carolyn Heneghan and Keith Nelson Jr.

Do you ever feel like your tumbling along with the constant evolution of online and social media? The latest blog platform darling, Tumblr, has paved the way for anyone who wants to share thoughts or media with the blogging world with more than 107.1 million blogs and 50.3 billion tumblog posts.

But what it has also done—and what was most attractive to our FlashFWD Awards considerations—was the fact that they have also provided a unique way for musicians to create interactive content. This content helps them engage with their fans as well as independently promote their music on a regular and more personal basis.

As the winner of the FlashFWD Award for Best in Artist Support, Tumblr is being recognized as a revolutionary platform for musicians looking for innovative ways to reach their fans and explore and strengthen the relationships they have formed with them over time. The platform is also a vessel for sharing and expressing more personal thoughts, photos, and other media to give fans and readers an insider’s look into the mind and daily lives of these artists. 

How Have Musicians Started Tumbling?

Musicians started their Tumblr pages like anyone else would—by blogging. This has included everything from band news and tour diaries to music promotion, personal or random thoughts and funny lines. As a vehicle for musician-fan communication, Tumblr brought the two one step closer together, giving fans something to read to deepen their knowledge and appreciation of the artist(s) they already devote their listening time to.

As users began to discover new functions and possibilities for Tumblr, so too did musicians begin to adapt. Photo-sharing became popular, and musicians jumped on the opportunity to share more behind-the-scenes photos with their fans—anything from antics on the tour bus and setting up for gigs to family photos and what they had for breakfast. They’ve also shared drawings and images they find interesting or funny. This past year also saw GIFs rise in popularity, and musicians began sharing them via the platform as interesting and funny tidbits demonstrating action shots during concerts.

As Tumblr Progressed, So Too Did the Music Industry

One of the next biggest platform changes for Tumblr is the addition of the music widget, which allowed musicians to embed music playlists into their posts and profile sidebars. This includes a collaboration with SoundCloud, which many musicians already use to promote their music. These widgets have given musicians the chance to share their latest tunes with their fans. They also have the ability to share their own favorite music or music that they’re listening to to give their fans a deeper look into their own musical tastes and preferences.

Tumblr’s tag directory makes it possible to include Twitter-like hashtags to make their content more readily available and searchable for Tumblr users. This has allowed musicians to tag their music by genre, subject matter, title and more, and it has helped them become more visible to both current and potential fans. 

Musicians Assimilate into the Twitter Culture and Community

The aspect of Tumblr that is perhaps most enticing for musicians is the reblog function, with which users can repost their favorite content on their own tumblog to share with their own set of followers. Reblogging allows users to feel like a more devoted fan by sharing their favorite musicians’ content with others and by spreading the word of how great they think the music is. This makes it easier for content to go viral across the platform.

Another way that musicians have assimilated into the Tumblr community is through likes and replies. Like most other social media sites, likes and comments are the key to fan interaction in that they let your fans share their interest and speak their mind.

Keeping all of the many uses of Tumblr in mind, we feel that the platform rightly deserves the Best in Artist Support FlashFWD Award. They have helped to transform the online social space for musicians in a way that not many other services have, and they allow them to interact with their fans on a more personal level than some of the bigger social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. As Tumblr continues to grow and progress, we are excited to see where they—and musicians—will end up next.

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Tumblr’s “Music Evangelist”, Nate Auerbach speaks exclusively with Soundctrl on Tumblr’s increased involvement in music, the changing entertainment industry, and addresses Kanye West’s claim that the Chicago emcee is the reason Tumblr exists.

SoundCtrl: There are over 100 million active Tumblr blogs, how much of that traffic would you say is music related?

Nate Auerbach: We don’t have hard statistics on that. Music is so engrained in the culture of the Tumblr community, who they follow, what they post about and what they share. It also manifests through so many different forms—audio posts, GIFs, photos, videos, quotes, text posts, etc.

SC: Record labels such as Def Jam have their own tumblr, Frank Ocean debuted his album stream (and his controversial coming out letter) on his Tumblr site. Tumblr has become ubiquitous in music promotion. How was music factored into the original concept of Tumblr?

NA: Tumblr is a platform and community that empowers creators to express themselves in ways that best reflect their art. Rather than conforming their content or conversations to fit into a grid or a network, they can mold the platform and how they use it. The concept resonates with all creative minds. Musicians are finding that, after over a decade in the digital age, their album artwork can be important again.

Frank Ocean wanted to engage an emotion with his album premiere. He wanted people to be able to sift through the artwork, and stream his album as one fluid track. Def Jam is not just a record label; it’s a lifestyle brand that has an identity and a voice. Instead of sending out a press release or posting a tweet that says, “look at this video from our artist,”  and clicking to it, they can just post that video. It’s apparent how much music influences traffic, not just on Tumblr, but everywhere. Look at YouTube plays, the most popular pages on Facebook and the biggest personalities on Twitter. That transcends to Tumblr. Many of our biggest blogs and most tracked tags are music-related.  

SC: Tumblr integrated with Spotify in 2012. What else has Tumblr done to help foster easier music discovery and what does it plan to do in the future?

NA: Earlier this year, we launched a community-curated tag page. I’ve appointed several dozen tag editors to promote the best music-related posts on Tumblr. This is where users can discover new music, blogs and bands. We recently improved our SoundCloud integration to accommodate enhanced search and SoundCloud sets. Bandcamp players can now share directly into our player as well. That’s something the blogging community is particularly excited about.

Tumblr is constantly working to improve the product and site experience, enabling users to find more of what they want easier and faster.

SC: A 3rd party app, Babblr has been released which enables real-time instant messaging in the Tumblr dashboard. How would a service such as this help Tumblr’s growing presence in the music industry.

NA: We are super proud of our developer community and we make our API open and accessible for people to build on top of the Tumblr platform. The more people are getting creative with our API, the more people in music will take notice of what they can do with a platform so rich in content and passion. 

SC: It was reported that Kanye West recently recited the lyrics “I’m the cause for Tumblr” during a performance at a MetGala afterparty. How did Kanye influence Tumblr?

NA: How many rap lyrics do you take literally? Lil Wayne says he’s a Martian. Tumblr is influenced by our users and by the creators on our platform. It would probably be more accurate to say that Kanye’s fans have influenced Tumblr. One of my favorite tumblogs is All Yeezy Everything.

SC: Has Tumblr partnered with artists in any official capacity?

NA: Like the Frank Ocean example, we’ve promoted the streams of albums or tracks with artists, as well as the rollout of unique artwork, GIFs and videos. We presented a free show with Tyler, the Creator, on March 11 in Boulder, CO. It was his first solo show ever, and it attracted so many kids that he did a second show that night because he’s that awesome of a dude to his fans. You can view some links here, here and here. We also helped Alicia Keys to find artists on Tumblr to help her cover her recent tour in unique ways. This was her vision. Some examples are here, here and here. Check out her blog. It’s super awesome. This week we will be announcing another event. Stay tuned for that.  

SC: How can Tumblr help an up and coming independent artist?  

NA: Tumblr allows up-and-comers to plug into pre-existing communities and carve out their own niches. They are given an abundance of tools with which to engage potential fans and generate unique conversations that emanate from their art and their inspirations. A great way to build your fan base is to find the folks who love you already, and see how you can multiply them. Our social tools are all about positive interactions; we don’t have commenting that leads to negativity. Artists can search their names to see what people are posting about them, click on their blogs to see what else they like, what they reblog, etc. They can use it to learn a lot more about who the fans are that will support them. Artists can also build full-on websites off of the Tumblr platform and optimize their web-facing presence, for almost no money, while also reaching kids where they hang out—on the Tumblr dashboard. Tumblr can serve as a complete hub for bands so they can control their navigation. Our integrations allow them to publish content easily and in a manner that is easily transportable and sharable.

The answer to this question can be an essay, but I’ll just stop there.