hey! as an artist do you ever feel discouraged by the like/reblog ratio here? ive been postin art here for some time and ive found for every 20 likes i get maybe 1 reblog and while i dont wanna come over as greedy it like kinda discourages me :( i would rlly like to stay on tumblr bc it feels much more anonymous than insta/twitter but i also crave Validation ykno. ty in advance!
Okay, but I fear you wonât like my answer...Â
My reply is - no, I donât, because tumblr actually makes it super easy to ignore the reblog/like ratio. The two are lumped together into a category called ânotesâ so unless you are looking for it, you wonât know what your reblog/like ratio is, and itâs super easy to view it as a lump sum of people who saw your art and smiled.
Hereâs the thing; liking vs reblogging is not personal. And it isnât something to try to change the tide over. Iâve seen my fair share of posts on here AND twitter, with most of them CONDEMNING liking - going so far as to call it useless. But I disagree. Strongly.Â
My opinion on the matter is this - if people wanted to reblog the post, they would reblog it. If they donât, the cards werenât right. The stars didnât align. It isnât a matter of quality - itâs a matter of the right content being there at the right time for the right audience. Because letâs face is - PLENTY of stuff gets reblogged.... when the circumstances are right.
But the circumstances HAVE to be right. EXACTLY right. There has to be a CHAIN of the exact right circumstances. Thatâs how sharing ANYTHING works.Â
Let me put it this way - say we have a hypothetical follower called J.Â
J is scrolling his dashboard and comes across a post he likes, say, of a frog picture. He likes the post and has to make a decision - to reblog or not reblog the frog?
Say he likes the frog enough to reblog. Itâs a natural thing - he wants to show it to his followers. He may not think of it consciously, but heâs following an instinct to share information with people.Â
But what happens after? Well, itâs not RANDOM. The thing is, Jâs followers are NOT the followers of the blog he reblogged it from. Theyâre a degree of separation from the OP, and are therefore that much less likely to share interests that align with the OPâs content.Â
Some people on Jâs follower list see the frog and like it.Â
Of the ones that like it, a percentage are just liking out of habit and politeness.
A few are liking it to find it later and show it to their irl friends.
A few are liking it because they DONâT want to reblog it, because it doesnât align with what they want to show to THEIR followers (who are, letâs be honest, even MORE removed from the OPâs frog-centric content).
ABSOLUTELY NO ONE. Because you cannot force people to reblog stuff any more than you can force people to show their friend their phone when they see a funny meme.Â
Can you imagine something like this happening?
This is ridiculous, right? We cannot presume that people are not reblogging because theyâre out to be malicious on purpose. Most likely they just arenât motivated enough to share it in their own social circles for their own reasons - and thatâs FINE.Â
Look, I get it. People not sharing your stuff gets you less notes. I get how that is disappointing. But if you put ALL of your motivation into internet clout, then you have to put effort into making your art VISIBLE. Thatâs the only way to get more reblogs.Â
For example, if youâre prioritizing visibility:
Get more social media accounts. Make sure the usernames are the same, or at least recognizable, across all social media.Â
Organize your art tumblr and twitter. Make a pinned post that shows off your best work. TAG! Learn common tags used for artwork similar to yours.
Interact with other artists! Comment on posts! Reblog othersâ artwork!Â
NETWORK!!! That is the only way to guarantee that the flowchart of reblogs gets more than once branch.
Twitter circumvents this issue by shoving likes in your face as often as Retweets and thatâs certainly one way to give your reblog-tree a boost, but itâs not foolproof. Tumblr has tags you can follow - and that DOES give you more of a possibility of getting reblogs of the content because if people are in a tag, they are LOOKING for stuff. On purpose. They already like what they see.
I feel your pain, I really do, because it took me literal YEARS to find an audience that consistently likes and reblogged my stuff. And your audience deserves to find you - but your followers arenât your agent. Itâs not their job to advertise on your behalf.Â
Theyâll reblog when they want to - and thatâs a good thing. Itâs more genuine that way.Â
