What is a “note”?
You see a post with 743 notes and tap in expecting conversation. Instead it’s mostly likes. There’s no way to tell from the outside whether a post has actual replies or reblogs, so the number promises more than it delivers. And when a post does have interesting conversation happening, a single aggregated count buries it.
User research confirmed this: “notes” as a term is genuinely confusing, especially for new users. You’re combining replies, reblogs, and likes into one number that tells you nothing about the nature of the engagement.
Fig 01 Two versions of the old post footer. Updated visual design, same problem: all engagement collapsed into a single number.
Designing the split footer
The fix was straightforward in concept: show separate counts for replies, reblogs, and likes so people can see at a glance what kind of engagement a post has.
The footer needed to look the same on every post: same items, same positions. Each element had to earn its space with a separate, legible count.
The visual balance challenge
Splitting one number into three was harder than it sounds. The footer has to look balanced on a post with no engagement and on a post with potentially millions.
Fig 02 Early exploration (v1): old footer (left) vs. split footer at two sizes across seven states. The Blaze button is still present here.
These early explorations still included Blaze in the footer. We later found that out of 76.7 billion post impressions in Q1 2025, only 1,922 Blaze campaigns were created on someone else’s post. The data made the call easy: we moved Blaze to the post overflow menu, freeing up space and making the footer layout fully predictable.
Fig 03 Split counts on desktop. Each post shows separate reply, reblog, and like counts in the footer.
Fig 04 Tapping the reply count expands replies inline below the post. No page navigation required.
The Reblog Menu
We also replaced the simple reblog tap with a Reblog Menu. Previously, tapping Reblog immediately opened the compose screen. Now it opens a menu with options: Reblog (with optional commentary), Reblog Now (instant, no compose screen), Add to Queue (schedule for later), and See Reblogs (browse how others reblogged the post). There’s also a blog selector that remembers your last-selected blog, useful for people running multiple sideblogs.
The queue is worth calling out: it’s a feature unique to Tumblr that lets you schedule posts to publish at a steady cadence. We know it correlates with retention and engagement, but it was hidden behind a Labs opt-in that most users never found. We bet that surfacing this feature where it makes the most sense in context would make an advanced feature accessible.
Fig 05 The Reblog Menu on desktop. Reblog, Reblog Now (with keyboard shortcut education), Add to Queue, See Reblogs, and a blog selector.
On desktop, the menu also educates users about keyboard shortcuts (Shift+R for quick reblog, Shift+Q for queue).
Fig 06 The Reblog Menu on mobile. Same options in a bottom sheet, plus a blog selector.
Results
We ran six experiments across three platforms over nine months. The split-count variant won consistently across all markets:
- Users reading replies
- +192%
- Users writing replies
- +6%
- Reblog DAU
- +1.56%
- Fast reblog (iOS / Android)
- +99% / +96%
- Queue usage (iOS / Android)
- +157% / +103%
Conversation and appreciation engagement replicated across web, iOS, and Android. We launched cross-platform based on these results.
Fig 07 The shipped footer on original posts. Separate counts for replies, reblogs, and likes.
Fig 08 All footer states: default, reply active, reblog active, liked, and share active.
Takeaways
The biggest gains came from making existing things visible. Queue and fast reblog already existed, buried in Labs settings or behind unlabeled gestures. Putting them in a menu doubled their usage without building anything new.
The same principle applied to the counts themselves. Replies were always there inside the notes view, but a combined number gave people no reason to look. Splitting the count made replies tappable, and reply readership tripled.