[Build Backlinks Online] How to Use Tumblr for SEO and Social Media Marketing

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'How to Use Tumblr for SEO and
Social Media Marketing'


Posted by TakeshiYoung
This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it
provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are
entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.
An introduction to Tumblr



There are so many social media platforms out there today that online marketers
have to be concerned about when promoting content online, that it can be easy to
overlook some of the important ones.


Tumblr is one of those social networks which is often overlooked, but which
has tremendous potential for SEO and social media marketing. I myself was slow
to adopt Tumblr as a social media platform, but once I started using it I became
hooked by its power and simplicity. Hopefully by the end of this post, you'll
feel the same.


In this post today I will be covering 1) What Tumblr is and how it works, 2)
The benefits of Tumblr compared to other social networks, and 3) Actionable
advice on how you can use Tumblr for online marketing, including specific
content ideas.


Sounds good? Let's get started.

Why should I care about Tumblr?

Before we get too far, let me provide some stats about Tumblr which should
help put things into perspective:



130.5 million blogs on Tumblr, as of August 2013
28th highest traffic site on the web according to Comscore


300 million unique monthly visitors according to Yahoo


50% of Tumblr users are under the age of 25

53.5% of Tumblr visitors are female


As you can see, the numbers are massive. There are now over 130 million Tumblr
blogs (known as "tumblrogs"), which makes Tumblr the largest hosted blog
platform on the web, compared to the 70 million blogs hosted on Wordpress.com.
It has 300 million monthly visitors, basically 15% of all Internet users. And it
has a demographic that is unique in that 50% of the users are under 25, many of
whom are teenagers (whereas teens are reportedly ditching Facebook in droves).


Big brands have taken notice of this too. In May, Yahoo purchased Tumblr for
$1.1 billion (the largest purchase of a consumer Internet company since Google
bought YouTube), and many of the world's largest brands already have a presence
on Tumblr.




Clearly, if you're not on Tumblr by now, you're falling behind the curve.

What is Tumblr?

So what the heck is this Tumblr thing anyway? It can be hard to describe
Tumblr because it combines the functionality of many different kinds of sites.




The way I like to think of Tumblr is as a cross between Wordpress and
Facebook-- Tumblr has all the blogging functionality of a blog platform such as
Wordpress, but also includes all the features of a social site such as hashtags,
following, sharing, and liking. Tumblr is similar to Pinterest in many ways,
except instead of multiple boards you have a single blog.


So although Tumblr is one of the most popular blogging (or microblogging)
platforms on the web, it goes beyond just being a blog and allows users to share
and like each other's content, follow other Tumblr blogs, and discover new
content through hashtags. It's a blog platform with built-in social
functionality and incredible viral potential.

The benefits of Tumblr

Ok, so now we have a better idea of what Tumblr is and why it's important, but
what are the benefits of Tumblr compared to other social networks and blogging
platforms? There are 5 key benefits:

1) Dofollow links

First the biggie. Links from Tumblr, unlike most other social networks are
dofollow. Tumblr is at its core a blogging platform, and you have full control
of how your tumblrog appears, including using dofollow links on your site.


Where things get interesting is when you consider the social aspect of Tumblr.
Tumblr has social sharing functionality (called "reblogging" in Tumblr parlance)
built right in, and if you have a popular post it will be reposted to many other
tumblrogs.


The thing is that each of these reblogs is a dofollow backlink to your
original post! That means if you have a post that is reblogged 100 times, your
tumblr blog just got 100 dofollow backlinks! For even more fun, you can include
a link within the post itself. By doing so, both your original post on Tumblr,
and the site linked to within the post will receive the backlinks.




Just imagine if every time your content got shared on Facebook, all those
shares were dofollow backlinks. Wouldn't that be nice? With Tumblr, this is the
case. The same is also true with Google+ (Pinterest also recently dofollowed
their links), but Tumblr has a more active user community and it's much easier
to have your content go viral on Tumblr.


Of course, you will want to be careful about what kind of anchor text you're
using in this post-Penguin world, but if you're looking for some easy, dofollow
backlinks, Tumblr is the place to get them.

2) Great content discovery

Another great benefit of Tumblr is that it has a great content discovery
system built into it, thanks to its use of hashtags. If you're ever looking for
great images or memes, try searching Tumblr for the hashtag, and you'll find
some good material.


The great thing about Tumblr is that people actually use hashtags for content
discovery (unlike, say, Facebook). This means that by using relevant and popular
tags, it's super easy for your content to get discovered on Tumblr, even if you
don't have many followers.




I have literally created brand new tumblrogs from scratch, and received dozens
of reblogs for my content, even though I had zero followers. And remember, on
Tumblr reblogs are dofollow backlinks. This is definitely not the case on social
networks such as Facebook, where your content probably isn't going to get a lot
of love unless you already have a large number of followers.

3) Content testing ground

Another use for Tumblr is as a content testing ground. If you do a lot of
social media marketing, you probably have tons of memes and images that you are
considering posting to your Facebook page, or you if you create your own memes
you may have different variations of a meme that you might want to test.


One of the ways that I like to use Tumblr is as a testing ground for new
content that I've created. Tumblr's dashboard is chronological like Twitter vs
the more curated approach of Facebook's news feed, and the upshot of this is
that you can post a lot more content at once to Tumblr than you would want to on
Facebook. Tumblr fans are more forgiving of less-than-outstanding content
because they can simply scroll past it, similar to how users browse Pinterest.




This makes Tumblr a great place to post a lot of content to find which pieces
perform the best. Then you can take the most popular pieces and repost them to
your other social media profiles such as Facebook. And all the content you
produce on Tumblr has a chance of being discovered later, thanks to the use of
hashtags.

4) Microsites

Tumblr is the most popular microblogging platforms on the planet, which also
makes it an ideal platform for setting up microsites. You won't get the same
amount of flexibility as you would with say a self-hosted Wordpress blog, but
tumblrogs are quick to set up, simple to manage, and free. And if you want to
switch from using a tumblr.com subdomain to your own domain name, it's easy to
switch to a domain name you own in the Tumblr settings.


Using Tumblr for microsites is a great way to build up a collection of web
properties with decent PageRank that you can then point back to your main site.
If you consistently post high quality content, it's easy to get these tumblrogs
to PR2 - PR4 within a few months.


Microsites are also a great option if your main brand is super serious, and
you don't necessarily want to associate it with memes and other silly content
that does well on Tumblr.

5) Branding

Last, but certainly not least, Tumblr is another tool in your arsenal to
promote your brand online. In addition to the other major social sites such as
Facebook and Twitter, Tumblr provides another opportunity for you to establish
your web presence. It's another chance for your to engage with fans, build
relationships with potential customers, and get your brand name out there,
especially if you want to target a younger demographic. As the online marketer
Pat Flynn always says, the best marketing strategy online is to Be Everywhere.

Content ideas for Tumblr

Hopefully by now you're convinced of what a great opportunity Tumblr is for
link building, content marketing, and branding. You may have even gone ahead and
created your own tumblrog. Good work. But what kind of content does well on
Tumblr?


Tumblr, like most other social sites, is a visual medium. That means that
captivating images and pictures will do better on Tumblr than long form text. If
you're already conducting successful social media campaigns on sites such as
Facebook and Google+, then reusing the same content you're posting there is a
good strategy.


If you want some specific example of content to post on Tumblr, here are 4
types of content that I've found perform extremely well Tumblr:

1) Memes




Memes are my favorite type of content to promote on social media. Memes are
just the ideal type of content for people to consume and share via social media
channels, and they're viral almost by definition. You can have a lot of success
just by curating funny memes related to your niche that you find across the web,
but the greatest potential lies in creating your own. If you want to try your
hand at making memes with some serious viral potential, check out this post I
wrote for the Moz blog.

2) Photos/illustrations

As with Pinterest and Facebook, compelling images are some of the most popular
pieces of content on Tumblr. This is especially true since there is a huge
userbase of teenagers with attention spans that are shorter than even most
Twitter addicts.


Creating great photos isn't easy, but it's not impossible to do if you have a
access to a DSLR. Even if your camera equipment isn't up to snuff, apps such as
Instagram can take your ordinary photos and give them a vintage feel that
appeals to the teen and hipster demographic.





Drawings and illustrations also do very well on Tumblr, and if you have an
in-house graphic design team, definitely leverage that. Even if you don't have
graphical talent, you can go to sites such as Fiverr, Elance, and DeviantArt to
get custom artwork created for you that's specific to your niche.


If all else fails, you can just curate other people's photos and artwork and
see some results, but always be mindful of any copyright issues, and give credit
where credit is due.

3) Quotes

Quotes are an amazingly easy type of content to create that surprisingly few
marketers are taking advantage of. Quotes are great because they're simple to
create, even if you don't even have any graphical talent. Just take an
inspirational quote, put it over an attractive image (or even just a plain
background), and you suddenly have a piece of content that can go viral not just
on Tumblr, but on sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and Google+ as well. It's
super easy.



4) Animated GIFs

Like Google+, Tumblr allows you to use animated GIFs in your posts. These are
incredibly popular with Tumblr users.


Now, creating animated GIFs is beyond my abilities, but it's really simple to
just take existing animated GIFs, add a clever caption to them, and post them on
your tumblrog. Instant backlinks, guaranteed.




When my client asks me why their rankings fluctuate every day, Iâm
likeâ





For a great example of this, check out the This Advertising Life Tumblr. It's
an incredibly funny site, and has a PageRank of 5 to boot. You can easily find
great animated GIFs to use by searching Tumblr for tags such as "animated GIF"
or simply "GIF". There are also sites such as ForGIFS which contain nothing but
funny animated GIFs.

Wrap-up

Tumblr is one of the largest social media and blogging platforms in the world,
yet it is often ignored by online marketers. Hopefully this post has showed you
why you should add Tumblr to your marketing mix, as well as provided you with
concrete content ideas you can use to drive success on your tumblrog.


I have built dozens of Tumblr blogs over the past year, and I can guarantee
you that if you use the content ideas above, and post on a consistent basis, you
will be able to build up a large following on Tumblr and build some strong
backlinks to your sites, as well as promote your content and build your brand
online.


If you have any questions, feel free to post in the comments or hit me up on
Twitter. You can also check out more of my ramblings on my blog. This post was
adapted from a presentation I delivered at SMX Toronto.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!






You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/GfKOseI9Yf4/how-to-use-tumblr-for-seo-and-social-media-marketing

You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com