As in many other areas of life, in social media we often create a familiar set of 2-3 networks or messengers that we use regularly. This number allows us to not overload ourselves with information in a metered perception, but to stay in touch with family and friends, talk about ourselves, read and watch favorite bloggers and follow brands we like. This is the same strategy often advised to companies by marketers – a few social networks are chosen for promotion, where the main contacts with customers take place.
Who needs “alternative” social networks?
Many of us are used to being inspired in social networks by visuals, and the strength of companies and brands is photo and video content. Perhaps some social networks are undeservedly forgotten in this transition and are worth paying attention to?
In fact, such platforms do exist. Today we’re going to look at Pinterest, Tumblr. Considering their features and, if you run a blog or commercial pages professionally, the features of your target audience, you will be able to choose new social networks for personal or commercial use already weighted and consciously.
So, who will definitely benefit from this article?
- Those who want to read their favorite authors or find new ones based on their interests
- brands who want to promote themselves through interesting, rich content
- bloggers who put a lot of emphasis on the visual part of the content and want to use it for organic growth
How does Pinterest work and how is it useful to bloggers and companies?
Pinterest is “a visual search engine that helps people find relevant content.” Many people know Pinterest for its visual aesthetic and atmosphere, but it’s actually much more than just a site for beautiful visuals. The main feature of Pinterest is its powerful recommendation system, which selects content (photos and videos that lead to content on other sites or author profiles) based on a specific topic query, visual characteristics of the material and its description. The main place on the home page is occupied by the search bar – and it is this feature of user behavior that Pinterest itself points out, noting that the social network audience is always looking for something for themselves, something they are ready to try, do, something they want to be inspired by.
Pros of Pinterest:
- Saving pins (photos and videos) from different sites
- the ability to upload pins yourself, with author photos and videos
- content virality, relevancy and after publication
- availability of video content, vertical short clips
- usage pattern through the search of something specific on a certain topic and the subsequent “sticking” on the platform thanks to the optimally selected recommended materials
- The possibility for users to collect compilations on various topics
- Authors, bloggers, creators and companies can also create a business account on Pinterest for tracking analytics by pins and users, such as impressions, engagement (how many people saved your pin, clicked on it or went to another site with it), video pin views, average playback duration and the total active audience of your account.
What are the features of Tumblr and why is it in 2022?
Tumblr is a microblogging platform created in 2007. Actively developed in 2013-2014, Tumblr is known for its special atmosphere, memorable tracks and active fan communities. There are many creators, artists, content creators, and a wide variety of publishing formats – video, animation, photo, audio, and text. At the same time Tumblr allows you to create a full site from a blog page – with a unique nickname, design and additional strips, such as links to other social networks, contacts, answers to questions and links to products. You can have multiple blogs for one account. Tumblr also features an extensive hashtag system – you can add hashtags to each post to improve its output for relevant searches on the site. Tumblr’s audience is attentive to building its own feed and blog visuals, so creators and brands who work or want to move to Tumblr should pay close attention to the quality of photo and video content. Audience activity can be tracked through the appropriate tab with notifications of new activity on Tumblr itself or through a Google Analytics account.
Tumblr pros:
- different posting formats: photo, video, gif-animation, audio, selection, texts
- hashtag search
- cohesive and active community
- an active system of reblogs (reposts)
- the ability to design your own mini-site on the basis of the blog
- organic growth through quality content
- Ability to track audience activity through Google Analytics
- Blogging on Tumblr is suitable for authors, media, blogs and brands who are willing to invest in visual content and connect with subscribers, including irony.
Examples of interesting visual blogs on Tumblr: https://glamour.tumblr.com/, https://vans.tumblr.com/
How do you look for interesting content on social media sites that are new to you?
If you decide to sign up for a new site, here are several ways to build an interesting feed of subscriptions. You can subscribe to authors and brand pages you already know, thus maintaining your comfort space and duplicating it in case of various restrictions on other social networks. Another way is to separate out the topics you’re exploring on each platform and assemble a separate set of authors for them, through searching and selecting interesting channels and pages by researching the platform itself. And of course, if you decide to run a personal blog or company account on one of these platforms, don’t forget about your target audience – it’s certainly different on different platforms, so additional research and surveys will help you a lot. Good luck!