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Tumblr, is this the next social network for brands?Directors Briefing October 2011

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02 / TUMBLR, IS THIS THE NEXT SOCIAL NETWORK FOR BRANDS?

Tumblr, is this the next social network for brands?

What is Tumblr?

Tumblr is a social network that allows you to create posts and pages through a simple interface. Any ‘Tumblog’ can be created in seconds with a standard design.

Tumblr is classed as a social network for its ready-made audience and ease of connecting and sharing content.

More advanced uses of Tumblr include bespoke design work and hosting on your own domain.

Tumblr Competitors

Tumblr has two sets of competitors. ‘Social Networks’ such as Twitter, Facebook and Google + allow consumers to connect and share content.

‘Blogging’ and ‘Microblogging’ Platforms that allow brands to create a presence and share content are competitive but without the ready-made audience. These competitors include:

Wordpress: Available in two flavours - Wordpress hosted or self hosted, the open source software allows any user to create very basic or highly complex sites using the power of themes and plugins to extend its capability.

www.wordpress.com

Posterous: A simple blogging service that allows quick set up and easy sharing with other social networks. Once seen as a real competitor to the social blogging crown, Posterous seemed to take a wrong turn with the launch of Posterous Spaces. The only bright star with Spaces is the direct connection to 26 different social networks including Twitter and Facebook.

www.posterous.com

Blogger.com is the blogging platform from Google. Blogger was traditionally the easiest platform to create and publish blogs. In recent years it has lost traction to Wordpress and Tumblr, however with recent style overhauls and forthcoming integration into Google+ we expect to see resurgence in its popularity.

www.blogger.com

03 / TUMBLR, IS THIS THE NEXT SOCIAL NETWORK FOR BRANDS?

Tumblr, is this the next social network for brands?

How Big is Tumblr?

According to Quantcast. Tumblr has over 7.2 million users, powering over 32 million tumblogs. In comparison Wordpress powers 60.3 million blogs with 16 million users.

Focusing purely on visitors numbers will not give a true picture of size. Both Tumblr and Wordpress can be installed to run directly on unique domains removing ‘traffic’ from the domains .tumblr.com and .wordpress.com

Five Reasons Tumblr will be important for Brands

1. Unlike Wordpress, it has a large and active community within Tumblr before we add in wider social engagement.2. Tumblr will triple in size this year from 20m users to over 60m users and growing. 3. It offers brands an easy and customisable brand extension, hosted on Tumblr or on the brand domain. 4. Hosting on the brand domain could offer additional ‘Google Juice’ through content updates and consumer integration. 5. Publishing, Entertainment and Fashion brands are already using the platform and pushing the limits of what can be achieved. We believe other brand sectors will cotton on soon.

04 / TUMBLR, IS THIS THE NEXT SOCIAL NETWORK FOR BRANDS?

Tumblr, is this the next social network for brands?

Five Brand Uses for a Tumblr

The rapid deployment of a Tumblr allows brands to use it for both long term projects such as a blog or for campaign/event specific requirements.

1. As a blog extension of an existing site. Tumblr can be set up as a subdomain of an existing site. This will add additional content and search benefits to the domain. 2. As a campaign site. A Tumblog could be created to aid a campaign launch and regular updates of content. Barack Obama has launched his campaign for re-election using a Tumblr platform. 3. As a full website. The brand MCQ from Alexander McQueen has opted to create its full website on Tumblr. 4. As a social ‘stream’ for wider activity. Using the Tumblr API, a brand could use the Tumblog to display photos from Instagram and other content sources including YouTube. 5. A Tumblog can follow and share content from other Tumblrs aiding the curation of content and engagement of other users. By taking the hashtag approach, A Tumblr could become a competition site.

Sectors and Brands Using Tumblr

Politics

Obama for President 2012 - http://barackobama.tumblr.com/

Fashion

Kate Spade New York - http://katespadeny.tumblr.com/Urban Outfitters - http://urbanoutfitters.tumblr.com/McQ http://www.m-c-q.com/J.Crew http://jcrew.tumblr.com/TopShop http://topshop.tumblr.com/Oscar De La Renta http://oscarprgirl.tumblr.com/

05 / TUMBLR, IS THIS THE NEXT SOCIAL NETWORK FOR BRANDS?

Tumblr, is this the next social network for brands?

Music

EMI Music - http://emimusic.tumblr.com/ Universal Music - http://universalmusic.tumblr.com/SoundCloud - http://soundcloud.tumblr.com/

Technology

IBM – smarterplanet.tumblr.com

Publishing

The Economist - http://theeconomist.tumblr.com/ Billboard Magazine - http://billboard.tumblr.com/

See our ever-growing list of Brands on Tumblr here http://dtt.me/tumblrbrands

The Future of Tumblr

Tumblr’s growth this year has been meteoric. With an increasing number of brands joining Tumblr we expect this growth to continue in 2012. The use of Tumblr by the Obama team will really push Tumblr into the spotlight both in terms of consumer usage and brand uptake.

A recent $85m funding round will help further strengthen the platform for continued growth. We suggest you take a look today.

Tumblr.digitaltomorrowtoday.com

Would you like to discuss this?

As a premium subscriber we are happy to discuss this report in more detail, answer questions or help you understand the potential for your own business. Please contact us on email (jamie@digitaltomorrowtoday.com) to ask questions or organise a Skype call to discuss further.