What is it?
Tumblr is basically a simple blog platform. It offers the basics of a blog – posting text (any length), formatting the text, adding images and links, even embedding videos and music. It also offers the option of a quick post which can be:
- one image
- one video
- one music track
- a quote
- a chat excerpt
Something important to note about Tumblr is that it is highly
customizable. There are various ready-made themes that can be applied and many
of them are free. If one wishes to go further, it allows for full code editing.
Thus, a Tumblr can be made to look as an independent website in
a matter of minutes. This is what makes it stand out from the other visual
networks. It can be used as a portfolio, a blog, or a general small website.
Tumblr can actually be considered the biggest blog-platform on
the web, as there are over 130 million Tumblr blogs (if they are to be
considered blogs). In comparison, Wordpress hosts about 70 million blogs
(according to Moz.com).
How is it used?
Even though a Tumblr can be made into anything, the majority of its users are using it in a similar way to Pinterest: posting and re-posting images. User behavior is the actual reason why Tumblr is being classified as a visual network and not a blog network.
Some examples:
- Sharing
images on a specific topic, found around the web (for example, hiking and travelling: Coffee in the Mountains)
- Sharing own sketches and artwork (keeping a visual diary, usually done by artists, illustrators and designers. Example: Illustration by SF)
- Sharing own sketches and artwork (keeping a visual diary, usually done by artists, illustrators and designers. Example: Illustration by SF)
- Sharing any kind of
images that appeal to the user (Example: Wantingg Youu)
Audience
As Pinterest, the majority of traffic to Tumblr comes from the US (according to Quantcast). More than 50% of the users are under 25 years old. 53% are female and 47% are male.
Marketing
Tumblr can be used as a marketing tool by almost any brand.
It is best for:
- fashion
brands
- illustrators/designers
- individual
bloggers
However, even serious corporate brands can benefit from Tumblr by
means of SEO.
SEO
Tumblr has a tremendous SEO potential, which is often overlooked.
The platform has a share funtctionality similar
to Pinterest and Instagram, meaning that posts can easily be found and shared –
and popular ones grow viral easily.
The great benefit of this is that Tumblr links
are dofollow links: they count for
SEO, whereas Pinterest links do not (according to Moz.com).
Therefore, when a post gets shares, each share
is actually a backlink, which adds “link juice” to the original post. If there
is an outgoing link in this post, the linked website will get all the “link
juice.”
To sum it up: instead of spending time and
resources building backlinks on various blogs and websites, a viral Tumblr post
can do the same amount of work organically.
Content
Here are some suggestions for content that does well on Tumblr:
- Illustrations
and photographs
- Animated
Gifs
- Memes