Twitter vs. Tumblr: A blogger’s showdown

The essentials of blogging platforms Twitter and Tumblr are pretty similar. Twitter is a micro blog that allows for postings of short messages, photos and videos. Tumblr is one of the best – if not the best – photo blogging platforms available. Now, which one is most interesting?
Blogging is a community activity. It is an act of sharing your thoughts, opinions, and vision with the world and inviting others to come check them out.
Without that sense of community the blog is not living up to its potential.
If you have not yet got an account on either of these sites, or you just want to know more about Twitter and Tumbl, read on.
On both platforms you can publish your thoughts real-time. What you type immediately goes out into the world. The same goes for people that you are following. This ensures a speedy news flow, but there are drawbacks. More about those you’ll find below.
Both systems are based on following accounts (called ‘handles’ on Twitter) to hear what they have to say and others follow you in return.
There are many users on each platform. Twitter is the more popular of the two with about a billion users. Tumblr hosts over 139 million blogs.
Both sites rely on your passing on what other people have to say by reblogging or retweeting. This is an easy, effective, and efficient way to share information.

Twitter:
• The defining element of Twitter is that users have a confined space of 140 characters to formulate their message, brief thought, a funny joke. Every tweet has a hard limit. You can publish a message over multiple tweets but based on how Twitter works this can be problematic. Only part of the message might be retweeted and information will go missing along the way.
• Your tweet can consist of words, numbers, and links. It can also have an image or video attached. Given the 140-character limitation and given that you can only attach one object, you are limited to one thought, in almost 99 percent of your tweets.

Tumblr:
• Text, photos, quotes, links, chat logs, audio, and video: all media types are up for grabs. On Tumblr you get a mini blog and you can put whatever you want on it.
• Reblogging pictures is generally the biggest thing on Tumblr. Other media are represented but pictures and memes are king in the land of Tumblr.
• Expect to see more repetition on Tumblr. If someone reblogs a funny picture, you will often see it many more times through other people you follow. Think of it as a big dinner party where everyone has cameras and instant printers. You might first see the picture on one side of the room and then encounter it three or four times more by the moment you hit the other side. Due to this fact Tumblr seems to be more insular than Twitter.
• Each post is more of a living document on Tumblr. You can add on a comment to anything you reblog. Everyone can continue to add comments to a post and sometimes this can grow into something that is greater than its individual parts.
It is generally easier to get followers on Twitter. Part of that is based on the larger number of users. Part of it simply comes through the nature of Twitter.
I really appreciate both and love Twitter a little more.
If you are interested in reaching out to new social media platforms, I suggest you check out both. They are both fascinating windows into humanity and great fun. However, if you simply don’t have the time and only want to pick up one I have a super simple suggestion for you: If you are more of a visual person, you will probably like Tumblr. Otherwise, go with Twitter. Log in, soak in the humanity, and log out. That is pretty much the core of both.

Bilal Hallab (@bilalhallab) is general manager and head social business strategist at The Social Clinic, a social business consultancy based in Jeddah.