Pinterest vs. Tumblr
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When Pinterest came along, I remembered that I wasn’t sure if I had room for another platform in my life. A silly thought, but I guess it’s true. We only really use a social media network when we “get something” from it. So what does Pinterest have over Tumblr or vice versa?
According to Wikipedia:
Tumblr, stylized in its logo as tumblr., is a microblogging platform and social networking website founded by David Karp and owned by Yahoo! Inc. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. Users can follow other users’ blogs, as well as make their blogs private. Much of the website’s features are accessed from the “dashboard” interface, where the option to post content and posts of followed blogs appear.Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that people use to collect ideas for their different projects and interests. People create and share collections (called “boards”) of visual bookmarks (called “Pins”) that they use to do things like plan trips and projects, organize events or save articles and recipes. The site was founded by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp. It is managed by Cold Brew Labs and funded by a small group of entrepreneurs and investors.
As a user, I was slightly confused in the beginning of using both platforms because the same image would pop up on both sites. However, if you realise the potential of both networks it becomes clear that they are not as similar as one would have thought.
Ryan LaSala has written a great article about the same thing, pointing out that both platforms underlie the principle of personal curation, which is very to the point. However, they should not be viewed as competitors.
When it comes to business use of both platforms, it has to be said that Tumblr has a bigger history of follower engagement. Yes you can leave comments underneath pins on Pinterest, but it’s just not the same. I have seen posts on Tumblr that went “viral” because of a certain comment and not because of the original post. It is also more multimedia oriented: You can post quotes, plain text, gifs, videos or just images. It allows for a real all round experience, while Pinterest is sort of limited to pictures. So this is definitely something to keep in mind.
As pointed out in my last post, target audience is something to think about. Tumblr has a very young audience and Pinterest has a more female and slightly older audience. Susan Guneluis described both platforms very well in her article on Sprout Social, so make sure to check that one out for more information.
There is a lot to say about the two platforms and some social media advisors say you can either chose one or go with both platforms (well what else is there?), but I would advise that it really depends on what you make of it.
As always, try not to do anything halfway!
