Why Make Tumblr Part of Your Social Strategy?

While Tumblr isn’t a social staple for most organizations, there are plenty of companies experimenting with it, including the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “We’re always looking for new ways to engage with our audience online,” explains Fergus Heywood, social media marketing chicago Executive Producer of Interactive Content with the CBC. Like any business, CBC can’t afford to spend time on social strategies that won’t produce results. But sometimes new properties demand new approaches, and the corporation took to Tumblr with its new show Cracked. “Because Cracked is a series that’s a little more adult, deals with some pretty dramatic themes, and incorporates lots of cool Canadian indie music, these qualities seemed to be a good match for Tumblr,” Heywood tells us. “Our series lead, David Sutcliffe (Gilmore Girls, Private Practice) also has his own presence on Tumblr, so we wanted to build on that pre-existing following as well.” For Bite, a Canadian comedy network, the choice to use Tumblr for promoting its broadcasts of Portlandia and its original sitcom Guidance was all about demographics. “Tumblr is the perfect hybrid of blog content and social media,” says Nikki Lamb Tudico, Marketing and Communications Manager at Blue Ant Media. “We liked the customization ability of the pages, which really helps to make the space feel relevant to fans of the shows. The fans of these particular shows are very digitally social media brand marketing savvy and are looking to consume content outside of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.” If you visit any of these shows on Tumblr, you won’t see the type of content you can copy directly to or from Twitter or Facebook. You’ll find a huge focus on graphics, images from the shows, animated GIFs, quotes, and reblogs (that’s Tumblr-speak for sharing content) of fan commentary or content. “We post everything, from memes and GIFs to games, polls, fun facts, and behind the scenes photos,” says Tudico. “Tumblr really allows us to showcase all the relevant content to our audience in one place, but unlike a website or traditional blog, there’s a much better opportunity for social engagement.”

Tumblr Takes a Unique Approach to Engagement

“Success is measured in many ways,” says Tudico, “but all come down to the level of engagement we have with our audience”. “If we’re seeing a lot of reblogs, or mentions on other social platforms (posts to Facebook, retweets on Twitter) then we know we’re on the right track and connecting with the audience in meaningful ways. Tumblr really allows us to showcase all the relevant content to our audience in one place, but unlike a website or traditional blog, there’s much better opportunity for social engagement.” Targeting user engagement on social platforms is no surprise, but Tumblr’s unconventional cost of social media marketing design gives it an edge here. When people want to interact with your content, they have only three options: share it by email or other channels, reblog it with or without their own commentary, or passively like it. The functionality for readers to simply leave a comment just doesn’t exist, so if they want to discuss your content, they have to be more engaged and share it with their own followers at the same time. The encouragement to share can make content on Tumblr very viral, spreading across the site as more users see it and comment on it. Both Bite and CBC are continuing their efforts with Tumblr — and perhaps it’s time for your brand to investigate the network, too. “Tumblr is tons of fun,” says Heywood. “We’ll continue to branch out in the Fall with other shows where it makes sense, define social media marketing creating opportunities for our fans to participate more directly and even contribute their own content in a meaningful way.”

Turkey's Social Media And Smartphones Key To 'Occupy Gezi' Protests

Turkey – In between the boisterous chants calling for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's resignation, the protestors at this city's Gezi Park glance at their Smartphones to quickly browse Twitter for reliable, uncensored news. The social media stream has become an important means of communication within the Turkish uprising that began in late May as part of efforts to stop the cutting down of trees at the park and replacing them with social media marketing plan pdf a mall. Ayca Malpoc has been camped out in a small tent at the back of the park, near the towering Intercontinental Hotel since almost the beginning of the demonstrations, when getting the real facts about them was practically impossible. "It was very hard," she told The Media Line. "I have a friend in London and he always texted me. And I learned the news from him." The Turkish television channels have shown almost none of the protests in their country. At one of the most intense moments, when police forces clashed with protesters here, cars were overturned and buildings torched, one Turkish TV news channel continued to show a documentary on penguins. Those protests now appear to be among the most significant events in modern Turkish history. Erdogan's opponents also accused other TV channels and newspapers of either neglecting to seriously cover the protests or downplaying them. "Our professional responsibility is to report everything as in the way it happens,” Cem Aydin, social media marketing best practices the CEO of Turkish media conglomerate Dogus, which owns the television channel NTV, told reporters at a staff meeting. “The pursuit of balance within the imbalanced environment affected us as it did the other media outlets. Aydin also reportedly added the channel has "an opportunity to refresh our relationship with our audience."