Organic Brand Building: Leveraging Tumblr for Authentic Audience Engagement

Social media has become pivotal in modern marketing strategies, where brands use targeted advertising and customer insights to expand their brand and drive business growth. However, building an organic brand presence is crucial for establishing credibility, relatability, and strong customer relationships. Amid the dominance of TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, an often overlooked contender, Tumblr, offers a vibrant community seeking genuine experiences and fresh ideas, providing brands with an opportunity for authentic connections. 

While Tumblr may fly under the radar, its emphasis on individuality, creativity, and community building enables brands to forge deep connections. To succeed on Tumblr, purposeful planning and execution are essential. Brands must go beyond mere product promotion and fully embrace the platform’s unique ecosystem.

The Tumblr of Today and what that means for Brands

Let’s be honest. If you’re not on Tumblr today, you probably thought it was an abandoned wasteland. 

Once a major player in the social media landscape, Tumblr has faced many challenges in recent years. After the platform decided to ban pornography in 2018, it experienced a significant decline in user engagement. Consequently, it lost approximately 30% of its user base along with popular blogs and communities (The New Yorker).  Many users migrated to other social media platforms like Twitter to fulfill their needs. It was what people called the end of the once-great social media platform.  

So, many will ask, “Who the heck still uses Tumblr?” 

Despite popular belief, Tumblr isn’t dead. Though not as popular as Twitter and Instagram, it retains a dedicated user base, fostering a vibrant ecosystem that celebrates creativity and individualism. It’s just not for everyone.

The Beloved “Hell Site”:

Today’s Tumblr isn’t the Tumblr girl aesthetic of 2014; it has evolved into a platform that caters to niche communities and fandoms, where nerds, artists, hobbyists, and fans come together to celebrate what they love. With its fan-first approach, Tumblr is marketed as a place, “where people come to create, curate and celebrate the things they love the most”(Tumblr). It’s a chaotic realm of inside jokes and self-deprecating memes that only its users truly grasp—a beloved “Hell Site” that fosters vibrant communities, as its users lovingly call it. Offering diverse content such as art, photography, writing, and more empowering users to curate their own experiences.

Contrary to what many might think, Tumblr isn’t just for nostalgic millennials. Surprisingly, 61% of their new users are Gen Z (Tumblr Press) and the platform proudly boasts that “Gen Z is kinda obsessed with us.” And it’s not a passing trend. In fact, 48% of Tumblr’s active users belong to Gen Z. Since the onset of the pandemic, Tumblr has experienced a surge in activity and continued growth, witnessing a remarkable 20% increase in new users in April 2022 (Guptamedia).

Tumblr has a unique appeal that draws users to its platform, with Gen Z responsible for generating 52% of its content. Surprisingly, 74% of active Tumblr users are not on Snapchat, and 50% are not on TikTok (Guptamedia). This preference may stem from Gen Z’s appreciation for authenticity and relatability in the content they consume (Forbes, Hopperhq). Tumblr, being a creative outlet, aligns well with these values allowing brands to engage with Gen Z and Millennials across various communities. However, to fully leverage a platform like Tumblr, brands must establish a strong organic social media presence.

Case Study: Manscaped’s Success on Tumblr

According to AdWeek, direct ad sales grew 230% year over year from the fourth quarter of 2021, although Tumblr has not disclosed the exact figures.

Tumblr presents a unique blend of organic and paid opportunities for brands to tap into. From an organic perspective, brands can measure their success through key performance indicators (KPIs) such as impressions, brand awareness, engagement, and word-of-mouth awareness. And when it comes to paid opportunities, Tumblr’s got you covered sponsored posts, and campaigns. The trick? Make sure your paid content is singing the same tune as your organic content.

Take a look at Manscaped. This brand joined Tumblr in July 2020, posting two to three times per week, with a focus on repurposing content from Twitter, and using meme-style content to poke fun at themselves. This approach led to rapid growth, with Manscaped amassing 10,000 followers in less than two years – the fastest growth the brand has experienced on any social media platform. But the magic doesn’t stop there. Despite spending 50% less on ads in 2022 compared to 2020, they saw a 524% increase in revenue (MarketingBrew). Furthermore, the brand experienced increased engagement with their ads, particularly through reblogs, which helped their content reach a wider audience.

The secret to their success? According to Tyler Wentworth, Manscaped’s director of social media lies in Tumblr’s “great discoverability capabilities with hashtags and various niche communities you can tap into, which are ultimately the right variables for organic social media success.” (MarketingBrew). 

The riches are in the niches:

Tumblr offers brands an organic platform for seamless integration into communities. With a user base focused on exploring niche interests and engaging with small communities, Tumblr presents a greater chance for brands to establish genuine connections with their audience.

Embracing Tumblr’s Culture for Marketing Success? What do Brands Need to be Successful on Tumblr?

There needs to be purposeful planning and execution to see meaningful results. The Tumblr community is chaotic and self-deprecating. It prides itself on the several inside jokes that only users of Tumblr will get. Therefore, to be successful on Tumblr, brands must do more than simply advertise their products. They need to embrace and adapt to the unique ecosystem of the platform.

1. Make Organic Posts

Any ad or post must imitate the user’s content supplied with the brand’s personality and tone. Tumblr’s greatest strength is that its users can curate their content. Users can easily deep-dive into their passions. The last thing you want to do is break users’ immersion with a typical Coca-Cola ad. So, content needs to be organic and fit into the chaotic tone of Tumblr

Understand the community and culture:

Before posting any content, you must understand the Tumblr community. The platform noticeably has a stronger sense of culture than other social media. There are unspoken rules and etiquette on how to use Tumblr and some members of the community have gone out of their way to create guidelines for new users. So, it’s best to first familiarize yourself with the types of content that perform well on the platform and the community that you’re targeting. How are users discovering content?  What common tags do they use? How do they interact with content?

Emphasize visual content:

Make your posts visually appealing to grab users’ attention. Tumblr allows you to add high-quality images and graphics to your content. So, take advantage of it to make your content stand out.   The Atavist Magazine utilizes stunning graphics in its content that sparks users’ interests and complements their storytelling.

Create posts that mimic users’ content:

Have a sense of humor. Make it funny. Make it a meme. Most brands have seen success using meme-styled content and jokes. Posts like Manscaped collab with ‘The Pikachu Man’ or The Tumblr Shop’s ‘Tumblr Field Trip Hat’ naturally attract more activity.

The visuals and message are eye-catching to have a user pause in their scrolling journey but the tone of the content still emulates the ‘quirky style’ one would expect to find on Tumblr. This way the post or ad has a higher chance of igniting a reaction. 

2. Tell your story

Tumblr’s blogging features and multimedia capabilities enable its users to create compelling narratives through gifs, videos, music, images, etc. without the 280-character word limit. Therefore, utilize Tumblr’s visual-centric nature to drive compelling stories and highlight your brand’s values, history, challenges, and unique offerings. 

Most importantly, you need to be authentic. Millennials and Gen Z are better at seeing whether a brand is genuine in the values it claims to stand by. So, avoid using scripted or overly-polished content as it may come off as insincere. Share stories or experiences from customers or employees that align with your brand’s position. Then you can monitor the response and performance of your storytelling efforts and adjust your content based on feedback from the community. 

3. Leveraging memes for brand authenticity 

Tumblr has an archive filled with jokes and memes exclusive to the Tumblr community. They have their own language and code. For example, if someone tells you ‘I like your shoelaces,’ they are likely trying to figure out if you use Tumblr. And the only appropriate response would be, ‘Thanks, I stole them from the president.’

Meme culture and “shitposting – posting random, silly, or provoking stuff just for kicks and to mess around – are a central part of the culture on the platform. And as a result of the platform fostering such a strong sense of community, most users happily partake in these activities regardless of their differing interests, which is how Tumblr successfully gaslit the internet into believing Martin Scorsese’s Goncharov was a real film (Guardian). Incorporating trending memes into your content can increase your content visibility and help showcase your brand’s personality and add a sense of humor.

4. Be prepared to be made fun of

Self-deprecating humor is a simple part of Tumblr. The users will make fun of you. They will make fun of Tumblr. They will make fun of themselves. Even the Tumblr staff isn’t afraid to call itself a joke. The platform’s atmosphere is more laidback compared to other popular social media. Besides the occasional political conversation, they don’t take too much seriously. 

Brands should be ready to use the teasing and the jokes to their advantage and embrace the humor. For instance, Manscaped, amid its growing visibility, faced backlash due to the high frequency of its ads appearing on Tumblr. It soon became a running joke among annoyed users that Manscaped ads had taken over the platform. However, instead of shying away from the negative attention, Manscaped embraced this new position and leveraged it to its advantage, to engage with the community and improve its brand perception.

As long as the jokes are in good taste and not offensive, it’s fair to join the community in their sarcastic, demeaning fun. Be witty and give a clever response or leave a lighthearted reply to show your brand is paying attention and can handle criticism. It gives your brand a sense of humor and humanizes you in the eyes of the audience. It also gives you a chance to take control of the narrative. If the jokes generate a lot of buzz, capitalize on the attention and drive engagement with the audience.

Concerns Brands Might Have About Jumping in to Tumblr

While Tumblr has many great things to offer, lingering concerns deter brands from investing their marketing efforts into the platform for it may not fit all brands. 

1. Limited Advertising and Targeting Options

Tumblr does not provide advanced ad-level targeting and sophisticated tools for data analytics as other social media platforms do, it does offer Advertiser Analytics for clients to track how their content is performing. Tumblr’s COO, Zandy Ring, highlighted their ongoing revenue experimentation while emphasizing the importance of maintaining the platform’s safe space for users and communities. Ads on Tumblr blend seamlessly with regular posts, allowing users to engage by liking and reblogging. The platform is continually improving, with plans to expand partnership relationships like the Stranger Things and The Sandman campaigns.

2. Not suitable for all industries. 

Brands with a formal or conservative tone may be concerned that their image doesn’t align with Tumblr’s chaotic nature. It’s also true that Tumblr has a less serious atmosphere than Twitter, but it doesn’t make it unsuitable for certain industries. Brands can successfully adapt to assimilate and engage with the community, once they understand their audience in the context of Tumblr. For example, NASA and the Atavist are two active brands on Tumblr that have more formal personalities but still have high engagement on the platform.

3. Smaller user base

Tumblr has a smaller user reach compared to other social media giants with billions of users but still stands out as a distinct social media platform. The objective isn’t to expose your content to as many users as possible but to actively engage with your target audience and build stronger, long-lasting customer relationships.

Key Takeaways

Tumblr presents a unique opportunity for brands to connect with their target audience creatively and authentically. By harnessing the platform’s unique capabilities and adapting to its creative culture, brands can create a presence that resonates with their audience and drives growth. With purposeful planning and marketing strategies, brands that: 

1. Make organic posts
2. Incorporate storytelling
3. Stay on top of trending memes 

Have a chance to stand out from the competition, foster meaningful relationships with customers, and capitalize on niche markets that can fuel long-term success. It’s the perfect place for brands looking to foster a loyal fanbase and community. So, as you plan your next marketing campaign or consider expanding your brand’s digital presence, don’t overlook the opportunities Tumblr presents.