Tumblr is growing quickly as a social media marketing platform and is projected to catch up to Instagram and Pinterest in usership this year.

There is a core group of social media marketing channels – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest…and sometimes YouTube. Yet these networks aren’t experiencing the fast growth that brought them to their positions as the most-used platforms, so brands sometimes have to look carefully at other options to reach prospects in unique industries. Case in point: Tumblr is growing steadily and is unique in the social marketing landscape.

According to research by eMarketer, Tumblr usership grew 25 percent between 2013 and 2014. Extrapolating into the future, data indicates Tumblr will reach 24 million registered users by 2018. At that point, this number is expected to account for 9 percent of all internet users.

Tumblr is the 28th most-visited site on the internet, and over 50 percent of its users are under the age of 25.

Right now, Tumblr isn’t anything to sneeze at: It’s the 28th most-visited site on the internet, and perhaps more importantly, over 50 percent of its users are under the age of 25. As Brafton reported, the online browsing habits of Millennials are extremely important for the future of social media and purchasing.

Tumblr stands apart from other networks

Tumblr is such an interesting content marketing tool because it combines the best of many different channels. It is primarily a blogging platform, but unlike WordPress, it features elements of social media. Some important attributes include:

  • Hashtags: These content discovery tools don’t apply to most blogs or news publishing platforms. Tumblr has embraced tagging, making it easier to find similar content and relevant accounts.

  • Chronological feeds: Tumblr is closer to Twitter than Facebook in terms of what users see. Rather than using an algorithm to determine what posts appear, Tumblr lists all content in exactly the order it was published.

It’s worth pointing out that Tumblr also features dofollow links as a rule. That way, every single instance of reblogging (the Tumblr equivalent of sharing a post) counts toward the overall SEO rank of content as far as Google is concerned.

Go where customers #blog

Of course, Tumblr might not be right for every brand. Its projected 9 percent share of internet users isn’t terribly lower than other well-respected networks (Twitter accounts for 19 percent of all web users, and Instagram 17 percent), but it is certainly a niche platform that trends toward young and female users. But brands may want to consider this platform for sharing content if their core audience is actively Tumblring and they operate in spaces the perform well on the site, like ecommerce or media.

Alex Butzbach is a Marketing Writer at Brafton. He studied Communications at Boston College, and after a brief stint teaching English in Japan, he entered the world of content marketing. When he isn't writing and researching, he can be found on a bike somewhere in Metro Boston.