Will Tumblr be the next big social network?
It seems that Facebook’s growth has evened out a bit this year, and according to a recent article by eMarketer, younger Facebook users were abandoning their profiles. Where are they going? Tumblr might be the answer. Even though it gets just a fraction of the traffic that Facebook gets, this three-year-old publishing/blogging site deserves some attention.
How big is Tumblr? There are more than six million users and, so far today, there are more than four million new posts – and it’s not even dinner time yet. According to Quantcast, Tumblr’s traffic has been growing quickly, attracting both the 13-17 and 18-34 age groups.
Why is Tumblr doing so well? Let’s take a look:
1. Users want to customize their profiles to better reflect who they are. Tumblr has hundreds of great themes available and users also have the ability to create their own.
2. They made publishing easy. Users can post anything – text, photos, quotes, links, video, audio and more – through the web, via mobile app or by sending an email. Heck, you can even call a toll-free number to record an audio post!
3. They didn’t forget about SEO and analytics. Tumblr has URL slugs and XML sitemaps – making it search engine friendly. Advanced users can paste in their Google Analytics tracking code to keep tabs on web traffic.
4. Don’t want to use their URLs? Use your own.
5. Users get to keep their copyright, and you can even make certain posts private.
6. Similar to Twitter, you can follow other users’ posts. If you like someone’s post you can reblog it.
7. Need static pages? They’ve got that too.
Tumblr For Your Business
You can find a number of businesses hanging out on Tumblr, including IBM, INC Magazine and Mashable. Your business should consider being there too, but before you jump in head first, spend a few weeks creating and maintaining an active personal profile to see how it all works. When the time comes to start your business profile, treat Tumblr as you would treat a blog. You need great content that Tumblr’s audience will enjoy and want to share.