Reading this blog post by Cynthia Boris at Marketing Pilgrim, a thought occurred to me. It’s a thought that has occurred to me before, and I’ve probably written about it a time or two on this blog though not exactly in these terms.
Cynthia is talking about Tumblr. Of course, it grew by 218% last year so it’s worth talking about, right?
First, what is Tumblr? Cynthia describes it as a more visual Blogger. In other words, it’s a free blogging platform with cooler, hipper, more visual features. Check it out.
Actually, I think it’s more like Twitter – only more cool, hipper, and super duper visual.
But let’s get back to that thought, shall we? Here’s what Cynthia said that got me to thinking:
If you’re marketing to the under thirty, creative crowd, this is the place to be. Fair warning though, you’ll need to be as creative and out of the box as your customers if you expect them to follow and “reblog” your posts. Think visual. Think quick. Think eye-catching. If your product can fit into that mold, then Tumblr should be your next social media marketing channel.
In other words, the marketing channel you use should reflect the audience you’re trying to reach.
Savvy social media marketers have known for a while now that Facebook and Twitter audiences are completely different. Your friends on Facebook want one thing; your followers on Twitter want another. If you use both services, then you probably have an idea as to what your fans and friends want. The same should be true of Tumblr – or any social media platform.
Traditional marketers have been doing this for years. They may run an ad in GQ magazine that they’d never run in Newsweek. The reason is because the audience of readers are different. Same product + different channel = different approach.
This is where we are with online marketing today. Look at your channels. Is your audience there? If so, define that audience. Approach them based on their expectations on that channel. This is marketing in the 21st century.