Tumblr officially rolled out its share button today, joining the ranks of many other social platforms. True to Tumblr, the button can be adapted to share links, quotes, photos or embedded video, carrying over the source attribution. Here’s an example of sharing a photo:
So with so many buttons out there, why should media organizations add them? “Couple of reasons!” Tumblr’s Mark Coatney told Lost Remote when we asked. “One is that, with more nearly 80 million monthly global uniques (double the number from this time last year) Tumblr is a large and rapidly growing community, and publishers can get a lot of value tapping into that.”
He continues, “More fundamentally is that Tumblr is an incredibly efficient way to quickly share content, and a community that places a premium on originality and creative expression. The ‘Share’ button lowers the barriers for these people to share interesting content from media organizations on Tumblr, and at the same time allows the publisher more control over how that content is shared, ensuring proper credit, etc.”
As with any media organization, the key is measuring value. “We’re working on tools to let publishers to track individual shared stories to see how they perform; we should have that available soon,” Coatney adds. “For now, referrers from Tumblr, as blunt and instrument as that is, is probably the best way to track.”
Update: We added the share buttons on our story pages, and we’ve found a novel use for them: sharing our own content into Lost Remote’s Tumblr, which we’ve neglected over the last few months. But now we can share ourselves into Tumblr with ease. (Yes, we know there’s a Tumblr bookmarklet, too, but we’re lazy.)
