What is a Tumblr?

Tumblr is the blogging platform brought to you by 26-year-old entrepreneur David Karp. Recently acquired by Yahoo, Tumblr now supports 108.4 million blogs (and 53.9 billion posts).

For marketers, it’s important to understand Tumblr’s niche. A microblogging platform and social networking website, it’s not the place for a post that runs 1,000 words, but rather the location for picture sharing and blog posts of a couple hundred words.

Although it’s a blog platform, Tumblr looks similar to the news stream from Facebook or Twitter. This simplicity of design makes for fast reading (and writing) and easy sharing of content. You can use hashtags on photos to help them be found in a Tumblr search, and regular content is also searchable on the site. In addition, each Tumblr post has its own URL that can be shared on other social sites – to drive traffic back to your Tumblr.

Tumblr also has some notable SEO-friendly features: DoFollow links, customizable URLs, customizable post URLs, custom HTML posting, title and alt attributes. For your SEO strategy, a Tumblr blog should function as a complimentary, offsite SEO tool (rather than your primary business blog).

Is Tumblr the right blog platform for your industry and audience? Check with your social media pro to find out.