Why every brand should be on Tumblr

Tumblr has had a phenomenal 12 months, both outgrowing rival WordPress and posting some undeniably impressive stats.

Not only that, but they can now count President Obama among their users.

While print media has been quick to adopt the platform as an extension of their social strategy, brands have lagged behind, preferring to target the usual suspects in the form of Facebook and Twitter.

But as brands saturate those channels further - social ad spending is set to hit $10 billion by 2013 - the case of Tumblr becomes clear, as it represents a unique opportunity for your social ecosystem; visibility.

Here are the 10 reasons why every brand should have a Tumblr.

Tumblr has had a phenomenal 12 months, both outgrowing rival WordPress and posting some undeniably impressive stats.

Not only that, but they can now count President Obama among their users.

While print media has been quick to adopt the platform as an extension of their social strategy, brands have lagged behind, preferring to target the usual suspects in the form of Facebook and Twitter.

But as brands saturate those channels further – social ad spending is set to hit $10 billion by 2013 – the case of Tumblr becomes clear, as it represents a unique opportunity for your social ecosystem; visibility.

Here are the 10 reasons why every brand should have a Tumblr;

1. Growth.

Tumblr’s growth is becoming impossible to ignore; 33 million registered blogs serving an estimated 12 billion page views a month as of September 2011 (8 times higher than WordPress), according to Quantcast.

2. It’s free.
Tumblr is single-tier platform, meaning it’s free no matter the size of your brand or the scale of your operation.

There is no charge for hosting, and no charge posting video or audio files, meaning you can upload a variety of strong, unique content, safe in the knowledge that it will be seen by the community.

3. It’s easy.

Well known for its user-friendly interface, Tumblr also has a host of simple, extremely flexible customisation options meaning that within minutes you can set up a blog that is on-brand, looks great, and the whole team can use.

Sure it isn’t as flexible as WordPress, but it isn’t trying to be. If you want a website, get a wordpress, for your brand blog, look no further than Tumblr.

4. It’s social.
Tumblr is inherently social. Users can follow other Tumblogs and have content posted by those blogs appear in their Dashboard, Tumblr’s answer to the newsfeed/timeline.

Following users with similar interests means that your feed will be populated by relevant content, and thanks to the powerful native tagging system, you won’t have to go out and beg for traffic – the community will find your content.

5. SEO.
Tumblr’s native reblogging system – allowing users to repost your content onto their blog – means that any links you embed in your posts can quickly spread around the site, generating potentially hundreds, even thousands of link backs.

6. Community.
As a Tumblr user you are given access to a highly interactive, passionate and youthful community of users. With around 44% of users aged 18-34, Tumblr’s community represents one the most youth-centric networks on the web.

7. Referrals.
Posting snippets of articles on Tumblr with a link back to a paid domain can create a strong referral channel, with fans of your content clicking through to read/see more.

Not only that, but users entering the site from Tumblr stay longer and view more pages than users from any other source, according to our analytics.

8. Brand Management.
Curation is the name of the game on Tumblr, and thanks to Explore – a collection of curated content channels edited by experts in the community – a strong content strategy can see you become the authority on your industry for over 30m users.

9. Event Management.
The tagging system also allows brands to take advantage of major events by posting and reblogging content from staff and followers in attendance, making your blog an authority for that event on Tumblr, and making you visible to a wider community.

10. Crowdsourcing.
Tumblr has some of the most knowledgable and passionate users with a collective deep understanding of subject, multiple areas of expertise and a unique voice.

Add to this the highly collaborative nature of the platform – each blog has a built in ‘submit’ function – and you’ll be able to source unique, compelling content from your followers, and the community at large.

At We Are Social, we’re already using Tumblr for ourselves and our clients, but for a comprehensive lists of who is using Tumblr well, see here.