The Social Media 101 Series is sponsored by Global Strategic Management Institute. GSMI’s Social Media Strategies Series are the leading educational events for organizations looking to advance their online capabilities. Learn more.
But, you might wonder, is Tumblr right for me and my business? Who uses the platform, and how do I engage the users who are there? What can I expect to achieve?
Let’s take a look.
Is Tumblr Right for My Business?
Tumblr has two big advantages over other blogging platforms. First, it has built-in tagging and sharing capabilities that makes your content easily discoverable and spreadable among Tumblr’s existing community. Secondly, it’s quick and easy to set up.
Tumblr also has some considerable disadvantages. Those used to WordPress and custom-built websites might be disappointed to find that their Tumblr pages offer less flexibility in terms of formatting and features. As Mashable has pointed out previously, Tumblr themes can be enhanced with widgets and sidebars and the structure of the newsfeed can be altered, but it can’t be completely reworked to the extent that more full-featured blogging services such as WordPress can.
You also can’t host your Tumblr, meaning that if Tumblr’s servers go down — as they do all-too-often — so does your Tumblr. You can, however, give your Tumblr a custom URL, and/or embed it on your existing site.
For these reasons — and because certain kinds of content (read: images) tend to perform better on Tumblr than other kinds of blogs — many businesses decide to have a Tumblr in addition to their existing blogs.
Bergdorf Goodman is a good example. The fashion retailer has a self-hosted WordPress blog at blog.bergdorfgoodman.com, dubbed 5th/58th, and a Tumblr called The Bergdorf Goodman Swipe. Although both blogs are full of images, the former tends to feature long articles alongside said images, and has a more curated, magazine-like tone. The Tumblr is far more informal, brimming with quick inspiration and behind-the-scenes shots, many cross-posted from Instagram.
“While our blog, 5th/58th, is more editorial, providing detailed insight about what’s happening in the store, the fashion world and New York, The Swipe gives a very private glimpse into the most imaginative and creative minds of Bergdorf Goodman,” explains Cannon Hodge, Bergdorf Goodman’s manager of social media. The content on each blog is tailored to accommodate “what we feel those audiences are more interested in… [and] the technical capabilities custom to each platform,” she adds.
In terms of demographics, Tumblr, like many a burgeoning social network, is particularly popular among younger Internet users, according to Quantcast. In the U.S., the bulk (55%) of users are under 34 years old, and another 30% are aged between 35 and 49.
Users tend to be slightly less affluent than the web average, with roughly a quarter earning less than $30,000 per year in the U.S. The platform has also proven to be particularly popular among Hispanics (12%) and Asians (6%) compared to other sites measured by Quantcast.
Much of Tumblr’s audience is international; of the estimated 9.7 million people who visit tumblr.com each day, 5.4 million come from outside of the U.S.
If you’re a small business owner serving an older (50+) demographic solely in your area, Tumblr might not be right for you. It might be better instead to pour more resources into Facebook, where you’ll have much better success finding potential customers with Facebook’s targeting capabilities. But if you’re looking to target young, geographically diverse consumers with your goods and services, Tumblr might very well be worth the time investment.
Getting Started
Setting up a Tumblr is easy — in fact, it’s one of the most-touted advantages of the service and has undoubtedly played a role in the platform’s growth.
To sign up, head over to tumblr.com and fill out your email, password and desired URL (username.tumblr.com).
Before you set up your own Tumblr, you’ll want to have a look around. Find Tumblrs in the categories you’re interested in by selecting the “Explore” button on the right-hand side of your dashboard and follow them. What do you like about them? What kinds of posts are getting the most engagement (by which we mean likes and reblogs)? What are your competitors doing on Tumblr? This is your time to study the community and set up your own Tumblr newsfeed.
Once you’re ready to set up your own Tumblr blog, you’ll want to click the settings icon from the dashboard and select “Customize your blog.” Here, you can name your Tumblr and furnish a brief description, toggle with a variety of free and premium themes, and add pages and custom CSS. You can also opt to use custom HTML, and at the very least, you should use the function to add Google Analytics code. When you’re finished, click “Save + Close.”
You’re now ready to begin posting.
What & When To Post
Tumblr hosts a wide variety of content, but certain kinds perform better than others.
“In my experience, photo-based posts, whether it’s something Photoshopped, straight-up photography, an animated GIF, [an] infographic or something else, get the most reblogs/notes,” says Mark Coatney, Tumblr’s media evangelist, adding that half of Tumblr’s daily posts are image-based.
Looking at Tumblr’s list of popular tags, one can surmise that humor, art, photography and fashion and are popular topics, as well as crafts, food, news and sports. Of the top 1,000 Tumblr blogs, 180 are fashion-related, says CEO David Karp.
For someone who owns an online vintage clothing shop, this is great. For those whose goods are services are less photo-worthy or concrete, this can present a greater — but certainly not insurmountable — challenge.
“Any brand that can create thematically interesting visual content can potentially do well on the platform.,” says Raman Kia, director of digital and social media at Starworks Group. “We’ve found that compelling images with a small amount of descriptive text work best on this platform. However, it is the editorial marriage of the images with a theme that acts as the strong connective tissue between all the images that creates something really compelling,” he adds.
Although fans will often complain if brands post more than once per day on Facebook, that is not the case with Tumblr, where post frequency is much higher. Of the brands we studied, some posted as much as 10 or 15 times per day, although most hovered in the one to five range.
Setting Expectations
Although businesses often feel pressured to jump onto every new social network, it’s important to be strategic in resource allocation and goal-setting. After all, you have a lot more choices now. If you’re spending half of your time on Facebook and half of your time on Tumblr and getting three times the engagement from the latter, you might want to consider revising your marketing plans.
As with other social networks, ROI with Tumblr shouldn’t be measured in terms of sales, says Kia, although he recommends companies use tracking URLs to measure traffic that leads to an online point-of-sale. Tumblr is better used to create awareness of a brand amongst a community that may not already be paying attention (or at least not on this platform), as well as develop engagement, which can translate into “a tremendous amount of social currency and earned media,” he says.
Series Supported by Global Strategic Management Institute
The Social Media 101 Series is sponsored by Global Strategic Management Institute, a leading source of knowledge for today’s leaders. Learn more by visiting GSMI’s website, liking it on Facebook and following it on Twitter.
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