Do you have any advice for someone who wants to start a sims focused tumblr?
This is a difficult question to answer, largely because of the first piece of advice that springs to mind when I read this -- it sorta depends why youâre asking... it almost becomes a little unspecific? But Iâll try to gather up some random points that might be relevant. :)
â Do it for the ârightâ reasons. That might sound really weird, because Iâm sure there could be several valid reasons to want a sims blog, but far too often you see people talking about how they never get any notes on their posts and people never message them, while other simblrs (some might even go as far as saying âworse simblrsâ...? Which is of course a ridiculous thing to say) get millions of notes and itâs disheartening, blahblahblah. I donât know if things are different in the TS3/TS4 simblr community, but in my experience from the TS2 one (or at least this is how I see it:), itâs about sharing things from a game you love, be it with one or two people who +like your posts, 500 people who +like your posts... or maybe nothing more than random people scrolling past your posts in the tags going âhuh, neatâ without liking it or saying anything to you. In my opinion, a blog about anything (not just The Sims) should be about things you want to share because you want to, not some sort of popularity contest to see who gets the most appreciation from random internet strangers. Donât compare yourself to others. If it wasnât for the TS2 Tumblr community, Iâd probably basically never play my game anymore, because nothing inspires me to play like scrolling through my dashboard or browsing the tags - and I think a lot of people have this in common - so even if you get one or two or six hundred notes on your posts, youâll probably be inspiring someone somewhere to want to play their game; either directly by doing something cool others want to try out too, or by decorating a nice little kitchen that makes people go âdang Iâmma build all the kitchens, unffffâ.
That bullet point became a little âpoliticalâ, but I see it as really important so it just had to be said... :p onwards to more practical things, maybe?
â Tag your stuff properly. Sooner rather than later. And I donât just mean tagging it with the relevant game for the sake of all of Tumblr and people browsing the tags, but for yourself too - especially if, like me, you have a mild (severe) stroke of OCD and like keeping your blog organized by tagging neighborhoods, families, specific sims etc etc... I had to go through my blog recently and re-tag a bunch of old posts, because I never separated between the different premade hoods in my tags, and it became a proper hot mess. x) So to avoid headaches (if youâre OCD, at least) - tag early.
â Donât make your sims blog a sideblog. Though this is certainly debatable and there are probably shared opinions (as with anything), Iâve seen a whole host of people doing this because they already already had a personal Tumblr, and just created a sideblog through that because... well, I donât really know why - but it seems to be something people end up regretting. Shared dashboards, strangely liking a bunch of posts as Honeycakemachinexoxoxo instead of simmergal123 (I hope nobody actually uses those, in which case Iâm sorry!) kinda makes it hard for people to recognize whoâs who, I guess... not that you have to have a âsimmer nameâ (said vimpse with her unpronounceable, random TS2 community name), but it does save explaining âI follow you on my main blogâ. Making a whole new account for your sims blog is also probably worth it because...:
â Consider a âreblog blogâ / inspiration blog. This, too, comes down to preference of course, but in fairness you did ask for my advice, so thatâs what youâre getting: one of my biggest pet peeves is when someone posts a lot of really good original content from their own game on their simblr, but then also reblog 900 other posts from other simblrs a day. I know you can block reblogs to remedy this, but itâs not just a repeat-dashboard problem - sometimes I like visiting peopleâs blogs to look at their game, but then every 3-4th page has to be skipped because itâs reblogs of other peopleâs content... maybe Iâm being finicky, but I honestly just prefer simblrs who keep their blog their own. Hence the âreblog blogâ / inspiration sideblog -- sometimes itâs also fun to have a place to go to see what people I get inspired by get inspired by in return!
â Donât be afraid to talk to / ask people things! This might be the pot calling the kettle a cake shape (or whatever), but you donât have to just sit quietly in your corner and wonder why it feels like youâre not participating in the community because youâre afraid to talk to people, for whatever reason. Weâre all people (some of us are cats), we all love The Sims; strike up a conversation with someone! About their game! Or their âhood! Or their sims! Or their OTPs! Or whatever! I donât think Iâve ever seen that end badly, and for the very, very, very most part: everyone around these parts are super friendly. :)(itâs been a while since anyoneâs called me âa bitchâ around here, but that was a thing a while ago because I have a tendency to be really... straight up about what I think, sometimes perhaps not in the kindest way, but most of the time Iâm nice! Sometimes I wonder if thatâs why people apologize profusely sometimes when they send an ask with a question :/ Iâm sorry if I give the impression that Iâm mean or donât want to be talked to because I answer abruptly if itâs something Iâve been asked a million times before!... and this isnât at all relevant to the topic at hand but whatever :p)
â Do exactly what you want to, and have fun. Which ties everything together, I guess! Feel free to completely ignore all the specific practical advice Iâve just given you, and do whatever you want - because in the end itâs your blog, and nobody can tell you how to run it (just like I bet some people would like it if Iâd stop posting novel-length responses now and then :D I regret nothing!). You just kinda have to do what works for you, from posting style to content, so that you can be the one having fun with your blog, not every Tom, Dick and Harry you might want to please because you do X, Y and Z that they donât like. ^_^ Be free, simmer-diamonds!
Hopefully some of that was semi-helpful, or at least some type of informative (though maybe not about the correct topic :p), and if you do decide to make your very first simblr, let me know so I can share the love and check it out. :) -- unless you plan on blogging TS3 because Iâm sorry I donât think I can handle that, but thatâs a different story for another time.
