10 billion blog posts, as of September 2011, 29 million blogs, and a rapidly expanding social network puts Tumblr on the radar for social media marketers.  If your company currently markets itself through social networks like,  Facebook, Google+ or even LinkedIn, it might pay to start including the fastest growing blog site on the planet. 

According to Quantcast Tumblr is growing at 40 million posts a day and attracts more than 72 million visitors a month, which has attracted a number of high profile companies to start tapping into its audience appeal. Leading brands such as IBM, Universal Music,  and even Twitter, are using Tumblr to get their messages out.

What is Tumblr ?

Tumblr is like a twitterblog; a blog that doubles as a social network, making it easy to instantly share pictures, videos, audio, messaging, and a bunch of other socially integrating stuff, around a  particular topic. Because the topic is the center of attention and not you, it  opens the opportunity for more people to be able to meet and connect over things that interest them.

What makes Tumblr particularly sticky, is the way it has integrated some of the hugely successful social networking sites like Twitter & Facebook with the ability to import feeds and social networks automatically, making itself the centre of an expanding socialverse.

Like Twitter and Facebook, Tumblr users decide who to follow, the “reblog” button on all Tumblr posts allows a meme (a Tumblrism for common  thought-streams, concepts and  ideas ) to instantly reach an interested audience.

“In my experience, photo-based posts, whether it’s something Photo-shopped, straight-up photography, an animated GIF, [an] info-graphic, or something else, get the most reblogs/notes,” says Mark Coatney, Tumblr’s media evangelist, adding that half of Tumblr’s daily posts are image-based.

Using Tumblr for business.

5 good reasons to use tumblr with your social media strategies.

1. You can easily integrate your other social media outlets with Tumblr. Your posts on Tumblr are automatically updated to your Twitter or Facebook accounts, Alternatively if you are also using sites like YouTube & WordPress, you can aggregate your posts on your tumblr page.

2. Tumblr doesn’t advertise on your blog, so you can sell you own advertising to suit your audience,

3. Tumblr blogs are search engine friendly, so you’ll attract more traffic to your site, .

4. Tumblr is fully integrated with Google Analytics, which makes it easy to monitor what people like about your blog, what keywords are working and what are not, and what blogs are the most interesting.

5. Instant word of mouth promotion, with the “like” and ‘reblog” functions, makes it easy for your fans to share what they  like.

Is Tumblr right for your business ?

“Photos, videos, quotes, and questions are the currency in the Tumblr ecosystem,” says  Social Fresh blogger Jason Keith. “The brands that have access to large amounts of this type of media are, not surprisingly, the brands that have embraced Tumblr the most.”

That makes tumblr a great place for publishers/broadcast media, fashion houses, and trend setting consumerism, where your product or service is interesting and worthy of reblogging.

It is not a place for traditional blogs, but it can be a younger sibling to your word press site or other social media family.

According to Nielson’s State of Media : The Social Media Report Q3 2011, female teens are the demographic that most uses tumblr, compared to nine other major social networks.

With tumblr shooting up the charts, it’s certainly worth considering if it might be right for your business.

The Bottom Line.

As a communication medium, Tumblr has tapped into the psyche of the online socialverse, and is growing fast. While communicating using pictures, audio, video, and text is not new, the way Tumblr has been built allows people to gather around common interests, to swap stories and build new connections.

In tumblr’s universe, content that quickly paints a picture is king. Brief, descriptive, colourful, and evocative content that can fuel the imagination works best on tumblr.

If you already have a team in place managing your social media strategy, adding tumblr creates an integrated platform that may save them time.  That’s an immediate value-add for your business’ social media strategies.

It certainly seems worth the Tumbl.