It’s no surprise that Facebook and Twitter have played a large role as “platforms” for many a brand. However, newer to the ranks is Tumblr, a micro blogging platform that allows the sharing of any kind of media, from links to videos. Tumblr participants are encouraged to follow other users and re-blog posts that they like.
Brands, publishers, and companies of all kinds have been embracing Tumblr as an easy-to-use platform for sharing media-rich postings. Different from Twitter, it allows for more creative sharing of photos and videos and is ideal for inspiring followers.
As a platform, Tumblr has seen phenomenal growth in the past year, not unlike Twitter’s initial trajectory. Monthly global page views have tripled since just a few months ago. The company has also just confirmed that they’ve received an additional $30 million in funding from a variety of investors, including major tech players Union Square Ventures and Sequoia Capital. All of this news points to the clear indication that Tumblr is here to stay.
The fashion industry, not usually first to jump on anything technology related, has quickly embraced Tumblr as an easy and attractive way to blog, share, and connect with fans. Some of the bigger players currently active on Tumblr include: Vogue, Oscar de la Renta, Ann Taylor, Elle, and Edun. Yet much of Tumblr’s current fashion flare started with personal style blogs such as whatiwore, DesignerSocial, shoelust (a personal favorite), textbook, and many more.
Fashion’s embrace of Tumblr hasn’t gotten past the folks there. “Over the past year, fashion has emerged as one of the fastest growing segments of the Tumblr community, with 20% of our top 1000 blogs related to fashion,” said Richard Tong, Tumblr’s new fashion director, in an interview with Business of Fashion.
With such a large percentage of the top Tumblr sites dedicated to fashion, it’s easy to see why Tumblr views this as an area of opportunity. In fact, they recently announced the creation of curated topic pages to ease users into discovering new content, one of the known challenges across all areas of Tumblr’s business. The three initial pages, still in beta, are #News, #Long-Reads, and, you guessed it, #Fashion.
It seems, for the time being, that Tumblr is quickly becoming an important piece in a fashion brand’s arsenal of digital weapons. Will the next big thing be “Tumblr commerce”? Seems that newcomer Of a Kind is already on that train of thought…
Find Tamar on Tumblr at: www.tamarstar.tumblr.com
Photo Credits: Cinderellaash.tumblr, Tumblr.com
All articles are copy edited by Gina Conforti
