1. What's Tumblr?
Author: Ching Chi(GiGi) Huang
Advisor: Rob Graham
Class: Interactive and Ecommunication
School: Emerson College
18 October, 2012
Welcome to the New Facebook: Tumblr
More and more, people use their phone apps to directly post pictures on
their social sites. Before, your options were Twitter and Facebook, but now you
have one more option: Tumblr. Last year, ComScore Whitepaper reported that
Tumblr's total users jumped from 18.6 million to 44 million in one year. The article
on ComScore also shows us the audience is highly engaged, with the average
person spending many hours on the site per month, numbers that are now
second only to Facebook. The social media website, sproutinsight says Tumblr
is, "a microblogging tool with which you can publish short text, image, video, or
audio posts. "
Meanwhile, according to Quantcast, 15% of Tumblr users are between 12
and 17 years old; another 43% are between the ages of 18 and 34. Compared to
Twitter, this is a much younger audience. It shows that millions of young adults
and teenagers completely ignore Twitter and go straight to Tumblr. Teenagers
like to get everything quickly, and Tumblr allows them to share any kind of
information, like articles, pictures and animation, with ease. Furthermore, a high
percentage of Tumblr blogs are about funny things, which draws young people.
Unlike other social platforms, companies will not know who their Tumblr
followers are, but the social site doesn't think it is important. Tumblr's 24 years
old founder and CEO David Karp said, "Who is following you isn't that important.
It's not about getting to the 10,000 follower count. It's less about broadcasting to
an audience and more about communicating with a community." Quality is more
important than quantity. Without an impressive number for marketers to give their
companies, marketers will need to focus more on posts, sharing funny and
attractive videos, articles, pictures or animations with followers.
As Mark Coatney, Director & Media Evangelist in Tumblr describes it
as, "a space in between Twitter and Facebook. Tumblr allows users to do
what they can do through Facebook and Twitter." Besides, it offers more
opportunities for marketing communication and provides a platform for
companies to combine all social media on Tumblr. Tumblr is more fun, less

2. serious, and offers new possibilities for companies to reach their
customers. The company can post animation to catch the eyes of their
followers and tag their posts in order to relate to popular topics. Its simple
usage and personalized web themes make Tumblr more relevant for a
company trying to market itself.
Tumblr vs. Facebook
The trend for companies has been to start their own Facebook pages to
reach enormous amount of users. The top three most popular fan pages on
Facebook are Facebook, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks; however, both Coca-Cola
and Starbucks also have Tumblr pages. I will use Coca-Cola to share how a
brand employs Facebook and Tumblr differently, since the company is interested
in both social media platforms. At the beginning of 2012, Coca-Cola said they
were targeting the 11 million teen bloggers that call Tumblr home. I will see how
they use it and how it works.
Earlier this month, there were 52,468,812 people who liked the Coca-Cola
page on Facebook, and they haven't released their number of followers on
Tumblr. The reason is because of what I pointed out at the first part, Tumblr
doesn't think who follows companies is important. But Coca-Cola gets an average
of over three hundred likes every post.
Coca-Cola's marketing team knows the age markets, and thus, posts on
Tumblr are different from Facebook most of the time. A big part of Tumblr users
are teenagers. The posts are about school life and sharing with friends, and
portray young people showing how happy they are when they have Coke with
friends. On Labor Day, the Facebook picture told viewers to "take a load off", but
there wasn't any related message on Tumblr. Facebook reaches a wider range of
people, many of whom are professionals. There are many followers on
Facebook, and they like to check friends' status every three minutes, so
sometimes they can see Coca-Cola posts like, "Coke Check-In: It's 7:30 PM ET,
where you @?", "Coke Check-In: It’s 5:50 PM ET, where you @?" to try to get
involved with people. It's a good way to learn consumer behaviors, and people
tend to like it, building a relationship with followers. This kind of post always get
the highest "like" numbers.
Aside from content, the presentation of information depends on the social
media. On the Tumblr, the first scene that caught my eye was three pictures to
show Coke poured from a bottle through a straw to a cup. It doesn't have an
objective, however, it looks cool and people can scroll up and scroll down to see
what's going on(see image1).

3. Image 1
On the other hand, Facebook uses two columns to show posts, since
readers can easily catch more posts, their eyes won't need to move too much. On
the right side, people can know how many friends also like this brand page, and
what Coca-Cola also likes, such as their own other brands: Diet Coke, Sprite, and
Fanta. However, you can't find links to their other brands through Tumblr. This
makes Facebook more convenient to raise awareness of their other brands.
On Tumblr, we can find articles based on content rather than date, which is
the way we used on Facebook. Even if Facebook designed a new presentation
form, the timeline, it still can't solve the problem if we aren't sure the time we post
them. This advantage works well with tags, since when customers want to find a

4. funny post, what they remember was the topic or some key words which make
them find the articles.
Tumblr's Marketing Advantage
Brands have many limits on Facebook: they can't change the size of their
cover photos, they can't decide their theme color, and they can't design what
others sources they want to show. But on Tumblr, the audience easily recognizes
this is Coca-Cola's page even before reading the content, since the color red is
used everywhere. Other brands can use this personal touch on their own pages,
like Tiffany's blue or McDonald's yellow. This brand recognition creates
connections between customers and products. On Tumblr, a company can create
an exclusive blog design, helping the company convey a consistent message
which is simple and impressive.
Tumblr also has an exclusive feature where users can post animation in the
form of GIFs (audio-free animated images). Animation is most attractive for
branding, since moving pictures easily catch viewers' eyes and readers won't feel
bored when they see too many words or pictures. I especially love Coke Cola's
recent post showing people smiling and waving at the camera. This post made
me feel energetic when I saw it in the morning. There is another animation post
featuring sweet, animated friends sharing Cokes, earning over 1,000 likes, a
number much higher than other post without animation. (see image 2)
Image 2
Maybe more importantly, Tumblr has a good function for brands which
Facebook doesn't have: tags. Tags allow more users to notice the brand, and
leading them to link to their website to possibly follow them. For example, a
picture of a girl sitting on a bench has multiple tags, possible keywords for search
engines. If someone wants to search the tag "teen," then Coca-Cola's picture will
appear. Smaller companies can take advantage of this feature, editing multiple
tags with popular topics and pulling more users to their page. Higher views will

5. bring more awareness and hopefully more business, which are vital to the
company's marketing.
As the strength of word-of-mouth becomes more and more essential,
marketers want to raise higher awareness, and they try to reach more people
through each client or follower that they have. They hope their audience will
reblog the company's posts, sharing them with their friends. Therefore, Tumblr's
sharing plays very well. You don't have to own a Tumblr account to share things
from Tumblr to other sites, such as Facebook or Twitter. Companies that work
through Tumblr make themselves more accessible and more available to a wider
audiences.
Conclusion
If a company already uses many digital marketing tools, like Twitter,
Pinterest, and Facebook, it might wonder if it still needs to use Tumblr. However,
this new social platform is necessary to gain more exposure for their brand.
Tumblr is also famous for its simplicity. Its user interface is friendly, and big and
clear icons at the top of the homepage allow users a simpler way to share in
different mediums. (image 3)
Image 3
A company might also be reluctant to open a Tumblr account if it has a
personalized official website. An official website has three meaningful points for
company: an exclusive URL, a designed website map that depends on the
company's industry and the viewers' needs, and they can keep visitors'
information privately. Tumblr is separate from the official website because it is
more informal, where users can play with the pictures and share what they find.
The official website is better for having a clear picture about what the company is
doing and getting a good idea of their historical press releases. But Tumblr is
good because a company can get feedback immediately from its followers
through their comments or by reblogging the company's posts. This helps the

6. company know what the customers want. Tumblr offers a chance for users to
interact with the company (reading posts, responding, etc.).
It's never be too late to use a new tool for marketing, especially there are 50
million users on Tumblr waiting for interesting information to feed their lives. If a
company wants a new way to directly market their consumers, Tumblr offers an
opportunity that other social medias cannot.