Tumblr - The Up-And-Comer on the Social Media Landscape

by: iCopywriter Senior Editor, Heather Price-Wright

For all the talk of tumbling being heard lately, you’d think Cirque du Soleil was in town!

Okay, so that was lame - but what’s not lame is the explosive growth up-and-coming social media site Tumblr has seen in the last year. According to the May 2011 Nielsen report “State of the Media: The Social Media Report,” Tumblr has seen a staggering 183% growth in the last year. That growth has been especially pronounced among younger demographics; Nielsen also found Internet users ages 18-34 were 75% more likely to visit the site than the average of all users.

One key aspect to Tumblr’s growing popularity could be its unique mix of content - it is partly a blog-hosting site - and social networking capabilities. The Nielsen report pointed out that much of Tumblr’s popularity comes from the fact that it’s a hot topic of conversation outside of the actual site. In May 2011, a daily average of 21,280 messages and links relating to the site were shared per day off of Tumblr itself. And even within the site, sharing is a major part of the way users interact. Those with Tumblr accounts can “reblog” posts from other users, thereby allowing individual blog posts to “go viral” much more easily.

Tumblr’s popularity, as well as its expert use of social and sharing capabilities, can teach other sites, even those of small businesses, lessons about how to gain traction in the online space. Basically, Tumblr and its impressive growth show us that people want to access, interact with and, especially, share content. Other sites would do well to think like Tumblr and build sharing, linking, socializing and interacting into their online strategy.

How can the average business achieve that level of online social interaction? For one thing, it’s important to have a strong content-creating team (iCopywriter.com to the rescue...) to write search engine optimized content that third-party sites will want to pick up, and users will want to share. After all, you’ll never go viral, or even close, without first creating something that will get people talking and sharing.

Overall, as Tumblr shows with its rapid growth, quality content and social media are a potent combination. By taking advantage of these two aspects of a strong online marketing push, businesses may be able to get a taste of Tumblr’s success.

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