The Overwhelming Success of Tumblr
March 01, 2016
In 2014,
the World’s biggest social network, Facebook, logged only 2% growth; a statistic
that may cause alarm. Worry not, this is not the death of social media, but a
dramatic shift in the favoured platform of social’s savviest users; teenagers.
In the same year, Tumblr was the fastest growing social media site with 120%
growth (Bell, 2015). Anything that can outpace Facebook is worth paying attention to!
Tumblr’s success has been put down to it ease of use and
mixed media appeal and has been described as “the best place in the world for
creative communities”; an area which has historically not been supported by
Facebook and Twitter. For the fashion industry, the visual nature of Tumblr
resonates strongly (50% of all content is photos), which has lead to rapid
uptake by many of the industry’s leading brands and personalities, firmly
pushing it into the mainstream. Unlike both Facebook and Twitter, users can
have full control over the appearance of their blog, an aspect extremely
attractive for brands, as their Tumblr blog can look and feel exactly like
their dotcom; making it an extension of the brand’s existing channels. Brands
are also incredibly receptive to Tumblr because of the potential reach that is
offered by the site’s model. Previous Director of Fashion at Tumblr, Rich Tong,
explained “It’s a one point of creation, two points of distribution [the reblogger’s
Tumblr page and their follower’s dashboards] model. Effectively it can then
scale to a point where this content ends up going everywhere on the web. And it
does happen a lot, especially with incredible hi-res fashion photos. That is
not necessarily the case with Facebook and Twitter.” (WGSN, 2011).
It may be
difficult for brand’s to understand how Tumblr’s audience aligns with that of
their brand however Tong sets this straight; “Oscar de la Renta sells
$5,000-$10,000 dresses; there is absolutely no correlation between those
dresses and a 15-year-old in the Tumblr community. But Erica Bearman [Director
of Communications at Oscar de la Renta] is aiming more for establishing the
Oscar brand in that little girl’s mind, so that when she grows up and does
become established or successful, or becomes engaged and wants to get married,
she’s thinking: ‘I want to be in an Oscar dress, I want to be an Oscar girl’.
It’s really about the persistence of the brand; seeding the Oscar brand in
these girls’ minds really, really early on. It’s a long term play” (WGSN, 2011).
Tumblr’s
users are notoriously ‘plugged in’ to the social space, and have genuine
passion for what they are creating and sharing. Connecting with users as
consumers relies on trust between the two parties; “Our users care a lot more
about the genuine and the authentic, so the way that you can sell to them is
through capitalising on that trust” Tong explains. Thus e-commerce does not
really fit into Tumblr; the community is very aware of what they’re being sold,
and they do not appreciate that.
Gaining a thorough understanding of Tumblr allowed us to concentrate more on our Tumblr blog than we had originally planned. It also supported our original idea of using various social platforms to market brand-entry level products to a younger audience, as Rich Tong described and praised other high-end brands for doing so.
Gaining a thorough understanding of Tumblr allowed us to concentrate more on our Tumblr blog than we had originally planned. It also supported our original idea of using various social platforms to market brand-entry level products to a younger audience, as Rich Tong described and praised other high-end brands for doing so.
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