Tumblr: Is Blogging Part of Your Social Media Plan?

For many clients, I believe that Tumblr has great value as a part of their social media plan. But nearly all of the clients to which we suggest Tumblr have no idea what it is or where it falls in the social media world. So today, I thought I would talk to you a little about Tumblr.

Let’s start with what it is…

Tumblr is a blog – an information sharing platform. It allows you to post text, photos, quotes, links, music and video – basically anything you want to share. It is effortless to post from a computer, phone or tablet. It also allows you to customize its look to match most any website or other social platform.

It is a force in social media hosting more than 141.5 million blogs with 64 billion posts. It is estimated that WordPress.org, another popular blogging platform hosts another 63 million (or so) blogs. LiveJournal hosts 63 million and Weebly another 12 million. There are many other platforms as well. The numbers astounding. It has been recorded by Pew Research that some of the most educated Internet users are reading blogs. In fact, in 2012, it was estimated that 60% of businesses had company blogs. Unfortunately, there are many that don’t keep them current because they require work – but work that has great value.

So why blog?  There so many good reasons. Here are just a few.

1. Blogging is the easiest way to produce and publish great content. It is as simple as signing up for a social account and writing. You can write original content or re-post existing industry intelligence.
2. Search engines love regular content. Those sites that produce regular content will see the best results in their search engine rankings. New search engine algorithms require that content be well written for the human eye rather than for the search engine spiders.
3. Blogging allows you to instantly establish yourself as an expert in your industry. In fact, by regularly publishing intelligent content and effective sharing that information, you will build a community of engaged followers – the goal of any good social media plan.

There are many other reasons to blog as well. But producing the content is only the first step in the blogging process. The next steps including sharing the content effectively and engaging with other established bloggers. So, create great content, publish it and share it.