We all have our social media preferences. Some of use Facebook, others Twitter. Still others venture out further, and touch networks like Pinterest. In this age, social networking is really no longer restricted to one outlet; the teen years of the new millennium have ushered in the age of multiple-outlet networking. As time goes on, the competition in the social industry becomes stiffer and Facebook is no longer the de-facto outlet to post your thoughts. In the wake of this, some social networks have thrived, while others have either fallen behind (MySpace, anyone?) or become stagnant. Tumblr is one such network, and has had a hard time in the market due to the advancing competition. So, as a company trying to survive, what are they to do?

Tumblr has always had a hard time turning a big profit, and so naturally the first thing that comes to mind when trying to save them is "how do we make more money?" Tumblr's answer: take their ads and go mobile.

Theoretically, a mobile ad campaign is a great concept, seeing as this is a totally untapped resource for Tumblr. On top of that, they have attracted big names such as Warner Bros. and this is encouraging for them. However, I think Tumblr might be getting a bit ahead of itself with this mobile ad campaign.

Wait, Why? You just said this was a good idea!

Simple: Tumblr is currently shrouded in obscurity when it comes to its use, and most new Tumblr users are finding it hard to adapt because of this. Let me explain.

You see, Tumblr is supposed to be a blogging platform, and technically it is; you can post things to your page, and this becomes your "blog". However, Tumblr is designed so that your blog is naturally hard to find. Therefore, it does not attract serious bloggers, but rather a younger crowd of people who are looking to generate something more like an online diary, only visible to a select few people. This means that the heart of Tumblr is not actually social, but is really closer to what you would expect to see in a high school lunchroom: a gathering area for cliques. We know this bad, because Facebook has tried to defeat this by increasing its methods of new friend discovery several times in its life. The problem with this form of social networking is that few people often venture out to find new connections, thus limiting the full use of the site and limiting content distribution, which is a turn off for marketers.

I like the idea that Tumblr is finally getting serious about becoming a more "real" social network, and turning a profit, but I feel as though the platform really needs to go through some refining before they can truly become a competitor in the social network industry. Tumblr needs to make a decision: are they a blogging platform, or a diary platform? In my opinion, once this is clarified, then their user base can expand based on a clear definition of service, and prove to potential advertising investors that their money will be worth it.

After al, Tumblr does get its user to spend more time on it on average than Facebook. There is some real potential there for advertisers. Tumblr just has to make the advertisers see that first.