How to Use Tumblr for Content Marketing

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Tumblr recently made headlines when it was acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion. This turned the attention of the content marketing community squarely on the platform, which can be described as part microblogging, part social networking and part animated GIFs, among other things.

Tumblr logo

The site boasted 29.3 million unique visitors in March, according to comScore. With such a large audience, Tumblr become an essential content publishing, sharing and engagement platform for a number of big brands. Shares on the site also yield bigger average order values than any other major social network.

Those highlights begin to tell the tale of why Tumblr is such an appealing content marketing platform. Marketers and brands in need of a refresher or a first-time primer on how to best utilize Tumblr for their content marketing needs have some key tips to keep in mind, along with some helpful examples to follow.

How to think of Tumblr
Tumblr isn’t quite a traditional blogging platform and it’s not a full-blown social network like Facebook or Twitter. It also has a heavy emphasis on visual content, but it doesn’t use filters or pins. So how, exactly, should marketers think of Tumblr?

“Tumblr is a middle ground between Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook,” says Beth Billingsley, display marketing manager at iProspect. Understanding the ins and outs of Tumblr and how marketers should approach the platform will flesh out the meaning of that description.

The importance of images
“Tumblr was made from day one to publish different kinds of media easily and in the most ideal form for each,” says Heather Huffnagle, director of digital at Catapult. “It’s important, then, to use the appropriate Tumblr post type when publishing your original posts.”

Tumblr offers users seven post types: text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio and video.

Tumblr post types

Huffnagle says choosing the right post type for the content you want to share ensures that it’s seen on your Tumblr and in followers’ dashboards in the way in which it was intended, properly focusing on the important elements of the post.

“Not doing so may subordinate elements of your post that you wanted to feature or not allow it to display correctly when it’s reblogged,” she says. “You’ve put a lot of time into your brand’s creative; show it off the way you intended to so that it looks great wherever it is seen across the Tumblr ecosystem.”

According to Billingsley, the format of Tumblr “highlights the importance of eye-catching imagery and GIFs, or interesting one-liners.” A quick look at some brands’ Tumblr blogs affirms the significance and appeal of images on the platform.

Adidas, which maintains various Tumblr blogs for its Adidas Originals, Adidas Football, Adidas NEO Label and Adidas My Formula channels, among others, has a firsthand understanding of the effectiveness of visual content on Tumblr.

“Really nice images and sequences of images, as well as animated GIFs, are the ones that drive the most engagement,” says Paulo Ziliotto, senior network marketing manager for Adidas.

Sephora is another brand that has benefited from the use of Tumblr. The Sephora Glossy is used to “share our visual inspiration,” according to Bridget Dolan, vice president of digital marketing for the beauty brand. She notes that visual how-to’s and user-generated content have been particularly successful for the company on Tumblr.

Dolan makes it a point to remind marketers that not just any image will cut it on Tumblr. “Utilizing unique imagery tied to a clear call to action is key,” she says. “You have to stand out in followers’ Tumblr feeds to get noticed, then make sure to follow through when Tumblr users click through to see more from your post.”

“A picture is worth a thousand words

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