According to David Hayes, Head of Creative Strategy on Tumblr, the popular blogging platform reaches a quarter of all gamers. Let that sink in a moment.
“People think that Tumblr is new,” Hayes said. “We’ve been around since 2007.”
For brands that haven’t yet taken advantage of Tumblr’s many unique commmunties and tapped into the reach on the platform, Hayes has some harsh words: “Brands that sit it out, that say ‘we don’t have the infrastructure yet’, if you’re not actually posting inside that stream, you don’t exist.”
While when many think of the kinds of content created on Tumblr, they might think of photos as being the principal way creators utilize the platform, that idea might be outdated. “Videos are our fastest growing post type. Especially micro, short-form, snackable video,” says Hayes. “We’ve had video as a post-type for 7 years.”
So what brands are doing it right Hayes waxes poetic about Denny’s Tumblr strategy, even going as far as hiring the creative behind forming the diner chain’s brand voice there. Hayes also notes that Xbox’s post on Tumblr was one of the top performing gaming post of all time.
If 2013 was the year of native advertising and 2014 the year of content marketing, 2015 will be the year of content creation, according to Hayes, and Tumblr is in a unique position to be part of it all– after all, Tumblr has 7 post types while many social platforms are playing with just one.
When asked if Tumblr would ever adopt pay-to-reach monetization as platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn have done, Hayes says “No way, never. Absolutely not,” saying it would be disruptive to the communtiies and fandoms that thrive on Tumblr. For brands, Hayes thinks “it’s demeaning to rent your own home,” with the communities brands work so hard to build on platforms.
“We would never mess with a brand’s community.”
