Blogging site Tumblr is growing at an incredible speed. There are now 32 million people in the US 4.5 million people in the UK visiting the site.
News organisations are engaging with the community by setting up their own Tumblr blogs. The Guardian set up a Tumblr account in January and started posting stories in February.
We have been taking a look at the Tumblr blogs of news organisations from around the world and have compiled a list of our favourite five.
1. Canada’s National Post
Why? For its use of photographs, front pages and graphics.
2. Washington Post’s Innovations
Why? For its linking of third party content, integration into its main site and the superb technology content (minus the deluge of royal wedding posts)
3. The Guardian
Why? For its design. It looks just like the Guardian. It includes a well-thought out layout, quantity and type of stories.
3. LA Times
Why? For it tone and fabulous collection of photos.
5. Newsweek
Why? For being very social and introducing us to their Tumblr person, linking multimedia content such as SoundCloud and for handy tabs within their layout theme
Follow our how to guide to creating a Tumblr blog for a news organisation.
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I have to wonder: what’s the draw? I’m sure any of those groups can handle setting up a fully featured WordPress. What’s the big upside?
Hey Ben,
The National Post’s regular website at nationalpost.com is about 70% powered by WordPress, but we started our Tumblr site up because we wanted to be a part of that network. Thanks to the ease of reblogging and the recent addition of better tagging, content travels quickly in Tumblr and has allowed us to reach vast new communities of readers who might not have otherwise seen our work.
I wrote a post back in January breaking down how Tumblr as a platform helped NP turn an off-the-cuff graphic into an online hit. Good example of the benefit, IMO.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/01/21/from-tumblr-to-tv-how-our-starbucks-trenta-graphic-became-a-viral-hit/
Let me know if you have any questions!
Chris Boutet
Senior Producer, Digital Media
National Post
@chrisboutet
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We’re new to Tumblr, but I’m sure we’ll make the top 5 some day. Thanks for this – useful to learn from best practices out there.
Bilal Randeree (@bilalr)
Online Producer
Al Jazeera
http://aljazeera.tumblr.com
Tumblr is a great place and it is easy to see why. It is growing at a phenonomal rate. Knowing how to blog is one thing. You still need to expand into other areas and tumblr is one of these great other areas