help a tumblr noob out?

[Vampasaurus]

so I just joined tumblr, and I have not idea what I'm doing.
I know I know, I could just google my problems away but you guys are so much nicer. Any tumblr veterans want to run the basics by me? I'm really at square one here, any and all tips would be nice.

I'm not doing a ask-me blog or anything, I mostly joined to keep track of all my friend's tumblrs, and now I'm hoping the bandwagon and heading into posting things. I have no idea what things just yet, but something.

[kaoskat]

I'm afraid I'm useless as I don't use tumblr but I can give you a nudge.

[StoryDreamer]

I use tumblr daily! I love it, I even use it for my podcast website, because I can reblog others.

First off, any tumblr you visit when signed in, you can follow. That means you'll see their. You click "reblog" to repost any post you like on somebody's blog - that symbol is like.. a circle of arrows.. 

Here is a guide written by a teacher about tumblr.

http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2011/05/beginners-guide-to-tumblr.html

[Eviecorn]

I've barely used it myself ...

[Rosencrantz]

Try to credit as often as possible! It makes artists sad when you reblog their art without letting people know who made it.

[hathorcat]

Thats a helpful link! Its not something I use too much at the moment but I keep thinking about it and then changing my mind. Maybe I ll give it another try!

[Aerora]

Try to credit as often as possible! It makes artists sad when you reblog their art without letting people know who made it.

Gosh, yes, this. ): Definitely reblog instead of reposting. Remember that both the person you reblogged from and the original poster can see any comments you make on the post (for some reason a lot of people  on tumblr don't seem to know this?)

That guide's a little old (so the main look of tumblr's changed a bit), but still pretty good in general. There's some settings you may want to change by clicking the gear at the top of tumblr, then clicking your blog title on the side: letting people send you asks, reply to posts, or submit posts. (Also, under "Dashboard," you can select if you want to see stuff from blogs marked Not Safe for Work in tracked tags.)

Tracked tags have been kind of hidden lately (you can search them at the top right, and it'll update with a "new" whenever someone posts in a tag you track), but they're pretty useful! When anybody puts a certain tag on their posts (not reblogs, though), it'll show up there. They're cool for finding people with the same interests or just seeing stuff related to whatever.

There's also some browser addons that make tumblr more... user-friendly. Missing E (Chrome/Firefox/possibly Safari?) adds a lot of useful options: reblogging yourself, replying to replies in a post, automatically tagging your asks, hiding all images until you mouse over them, etc. Tumblr Savior (Firefox/Chrome, but it's kind of clunky in Firefox) allows you to set up a blacklist of stuff you don't want to see (and a whitelist of stuff you always want to see, if there's any overlap), and it'll hide those posts. I'm not really interested in BBC Sherlock, and people I follow are, so I hid it. (On that note, tagging stuff for followers to hide if it bothers them is polite, especially for content like blood/violence/etc.)

Honestly, just jump right in! c: this got really long i'm sorry

[Vampasaurus]

Thanks guys! this is exactly what I was looking for, I understand how to use it (mostly) but I'm mostly looking for the proper etiquette. I'm quite possibly the most socially awkward person on the planet and I have to know all the little hidden rules before I dive into any social sight. (Trust me on that, I spend weeks studying up on proper Llama giving etiquette on deviantart before I started posting!)