POST 1: THE LIFECYCLE OF THE SUN

ANALYSIS OF ENGAGEMENT

For our first Tumblr post we followed a week’s worth of engagement on the lifecycle of the sun. The Tumblr post received the most likes the quickest but was later passed by Instagram. This initial Tumblr post came with a lot of learning curves, as the platform was not well known by any of us, and we had to decide the most reasonable standards to track our success. This led to an uncertainty in viewership and responses and if we were posting in the most effective way. We attempted to use a mixture of pictures that illustrated the information being presented and decided to focus on likes, comments, and re-blogs. This was decided by researching the best statistical ways of using Tumblr after their revamp in 2022 (Topic: Tumblr). There were no comments, but this may have to do with it being our first post or our viewers lack of knowledge on the subject. It can be intimidating to start the conversation, especially a topic that is arcane. Overall, the post was a good start to build a following and our likes column was satisfactory.

POST 2: THE SCIENCE OF ANT-MAN

ANALYSIS OF ENGAGEMENT

Our second post on Tumblr was about "The Science(-Fiction) of Ant-Man", which we had very high expectations for. We felt the connection between a blockbuster movie and a scientific interest would spark a wide range of interest. As with the last post we received a fast response of likes that lasted over the week and ended up being our most popular platform. We even received our first comment and remained steady with our re-blogs; all which occurred the first few days and then stopped. The success of this platform shows us the age of viewership and helps us better structure our future posts. Which we can contrast to our other platforms which did not do as well, such as Medium. Which is populated with a far older audience, while the next best platforms were those directed at a younger audience, such as Instagram and TikTok (de Luna, 2022). So far Tumblr has been our most consistent platform and offers us a glimpse into the type of scientific topics that are of interest to the average reader.

POST 3: WHY THINGS NEVER ACTUALLY TOUCH

ANALYSIS OF ENGAGEMENT

The last Tumblr post, "Why things never really touch", once again received a lot of attention. The likes were equivalent with our last post and we even received 6 more re-blogs. Even though this subject had no connection to mainstream media, I think it was so successful because of its unique question it looked to answer. This can also be shown by the increase of re-blogs, indicating the excitement to share it with fellow science lovers. It’s interesting to see that there were no comments, as you would think someone would even add a comment like “wow I have always wondered that”. This may indicate that Tumblr isn’t much of a discussion board and may be better used to spark initial interest and then the viewer can move to a more social platform . Allowing them the initial information to begin their scientific journey on the subject but is not intended to handle critical conversation. Tumblrs entire persona catters to new users and that is very important because the platform requires a lot of direction to navigate and use effectively to focus on likes and reblogs that hold the largest role in the algorithm (de Luna, 2022). Overall Tumblr was a great platform to share scientific information and it offers a variety of ways to share information and grow a following.