A Guide to Marketing on Tumblr

The next big thing to hit the shelves of digital marketing is a site called Tumblr. Despite the peculiar name, it pulled a massive amount of news when acquired by Yahoo for over $1 Billion dollars earlier this year (yep, that’s a billion).

Is it the next big thing in digital marketing? We have yet to find out. It is hard to judge the value of a specific social media channel because every brand is different. Every customer has different ways they use technology and the Internet. However, it is important to understand the tool simply it could a new way to showcase your brand.

Before we dive into the massive amount of information around Tumblr it is important to understand the world in which Tumblr came from. In the early days of content creation and digital marketing there was this little thing called blogging. It was (and still is) all the rage and tools like WordPress allowed businesses to create articles to post on their website. This content was shared via social media and increased traffic, search ranking, and ultimately sales.  Blogging consisted of words, words and more words. Tumblr changed that.

Tumblr changed the idea of blogging to include microblogging. Let’s keep it pretty simple. Blogging is long-form content (500-1000 words). Micro-blogging consists of shorter form content pictures, sentences and videos. Think Twitter.

In order not to confuse things further let’s hear it straight from the horse’s mouth courtesy of Tumblr.com/about:

Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music and videos from your browser, phone desktop email or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors to your theme’s HTML

Tumblr also has a massive community of users. According to Time Magazine, Tumblr currently boasts 108.4 million blogs and 50.9 billion posts. Yes, that is a ton of content and people.

If you want to write a synopsis on how to nurture the perfect garden or the benefits of Colorado Blues, Tumblr is not the place. If you want to share a picture of the Colorado Blues or upload a short video, Tumblr is it!

You may want to get started and test out the site. It is extremely easy to build a page and start sharing content via your mobile device or desktop computer. It doesn’t hurt to test and try some content, right? Before you dive in, let’s take a look at some tips and tricks to make your transition to micro-blogging as easy as possible.

1. Forget Everything You Learned About Marketing. According to Inc Magazine, “Your standard marketing spiel does not apply.  Definitely decide your goal or goals for your Tumblr blog such as building brand awareness, educating customers, improving customer service, or whatever your goal may be–and then immediately shift the focus from your company to your audience.” It is hard to change and shift focus when you are constantly building your business, however, it is important to note that Tumblr is a completely different animal than WordPress and your website. Plan accordingly.

2. Create a Great Tumblr Name. When starting your Tumblr blog, the name is extremely important because it is one of the first things that catches the reader’s attention. You can think of a creative name or just use your brand name. However, put some thought in exactly how you want to brand this creative and visual portal. Search for other garden centers and learn for your peers.

3. Photos Are Premium. Tumblr is an extremely visual community of people. It is extremely rare to find more than a sentence on any of 50.9 billion posts that exist today (yep, I looked at all of them). The garden center community is extremely suited for this type of photo creation and sharing. You sell beautiful product. Take photos and upload them. If you are using a photo app like Instagram, you usually have the ability to upload directly from the app to Tumblr.

4. Share Your Customer’s Stories. Do not use your Tumblr blog as a place to throw all of your marketing material. It should be focused on the customer and content THEY want to read. Remember, your customer is your best sales person. Share their content. Find your customers that are using Tumblr (or another social network) and share their pictures, video, and animated gifs. This is a great way to interact with your customer base.

5. Always Use Tags On Posts. Tumblr relies on tags to curate and manage the massive amounts of content hitting their site every day. It is important to use tags in order to be found by the community. It is optimal to use between seven and twelve tags because it will draw a large group of people via search engines and will not look like spam.

Honestly, there are entire books out there to help you with Tumblr and it can be hard to fit all the knowledge into one article. Your ability to try and test this new platform is of utmost importance because of the amount of people using it. Take some time and read up on the tool and test it. It never hurt to share photos and video of your beautiful products, Tumblr is no different.