Businesses love Facebook. You can Like everything from Starbucks to Jiffy Lube, and you can get invited to everything from special events at your favorite clothing boutique to small-business cash mobs.
The Twitter bug has also bit businesses. Even Pizza Hut tweets its latest menu additions for real-time feedback. Pinterest is gathering momentum, too. It's no longer viewed solely as a site for wannabe Martha Stewarts.
But enterprises have been slow to warm to another social media juggernaut, either for internal or external use: Tumblr. Even though it boasts more than 95 million blogs and 44 billion posts, precious few companies tread on Tumblr.
In many ways, Tumblr is like Twitter, though it focuses less on following and more on rich media. Perhaps that's part of the reason businesses are hesitant. They're afraid Tumblr won't be social enough. But some companies (mostly in the clothing industry) are starting to warm to the networking site. Of A Kind, Kate Spade, Oscar PR Girl, McQ, Ann Taylor, and Drop Dead Clothing all have fashion-oriented Tumblrs. DMC Hotels and The Standard Hotel have also entered this world. In the technology world, IBM (sponsor of Internet Evolution), has put Tumblr to work.
The DMC Hotels page offers a particularly interesting example of why companies may want to embrace Tumblr. Basically, the page consists of a single post describing the hotel chain and its business successes. Despite that minimalism, the page is highly ranked on Google; search "Tumblr" and "hotels" to see for yourself. At worst, Tumblr's strong status on Google gives companies the chance for free advertising of sorts -- perhaps a corporate vision statement or a blog about the company's history (whatever the company feels is most appropriate).
In theory, companies could turn Tumblr into a far more utilitarian tool. For example, Bitly uses its page to announce software development kit news, statistics, and more. Again, the high Google ranking means free advertising. Better yet, the business is directing visitors to useful information. The nonprofit group Doctors Without Borders leverages Tumblr in a similarly utilitarian fashion.
There's one more way to put Tumblr to use: the internal blog. It's hard to gauge how much traction private Tumblr accounts are getting in the corporate world, because, well, they're private. But Tumblr offers arguably as good a ready-made package as WordPress or other alternatives, with the upside that a private (in other words, password protected) Tumblr URL is hosted for free.
Using a free Tumblr, you can post general-purpose training materials and notes to employees. This isn't an overly secure option, so you shouldn't post anything that would be catastrophic for the general public (or your competitors) to see.
Most businesses are making strong use of Twitter and Facebook. But as Tumblr grows in popular appeal and Google status, you can expect more businesses to start leveraging this social media tool. It is just as comfortable serving as a Swiss Army knife for your business blogging needs as it is serving up memes. For that reason, Tumblr is worth a serious look.
For so many companies social media remains something you do -but the ROI remains a mystery.
@DavidSilversmith, true, measuring social medias ROI is still a myestery but that should not discourage companies from embracing social media. Its always better if the companies have presence on social media because they will get larger audience with whom they can directly interact.
@Keveend: Yes it may be secure than other social networks we have right now but still it lacks professionalism. It involves security aspects too. Just see how many privacy complaints have been logged against FB every week.
For so many companies social media remains something you do -but the ROI remains a mystery. It's like most advertising and marketing - 50% of it works, you just never know which 50 percent.
I see more companies using auto-posting programs so one post goes to Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Google + and whatever comes along next. So far no new service has carved out a niche that is unique or different from Facebook - so it's simply a matter of being in as many places as possible.
facebook twitter PINTEREST and tumblr PRESENCE for brands nearly nullifies the need for a business website that do not require transactions.
I'm leaning toward the role of pinterest slightly over tumblr for a brand's pivot however. Nonetheless, for engagement purposes, tumblr edges pinterests.
It was Nicole Ferraro who 'inspired' me to create my first tumblr account @thxnicole.
I was a bit bitter as the site imvivo I ran (I'm Vivo), now offline provide similar functionality, yet with a UI that wssn't as comfortable as tumblr's.
With that said, I have to agree with:
"But enterprises have been slow to warm to another social media juggernaut, either for internal or external use: Tumblr. Even though it boasts more than 95 million blogs and 44 billion posts, precious few companies tread on Tumblr."
What I do know with confidence is that the adaption by entertainers have been more than impressive.
Ameriie posting a reply of my tumblr question to her via a tweet has me saying once again, THANKS Nicole!! :)
Well, I think its between Facebook and Twitter. I don't see it close to Pinterest because (from what I've heard), Pinterest is more neutral (not so much for brands).
The problem is they need to go where the users are. They could use Twitter for quick customer interaction (customer support, etc), Facebook for a more general information (similar to a website) and Tumblr for daily posts of what they are doing. but in the end, they sort of follow users, not the other way around.
Security is one thing anyone naturally expects in a social networking site. They are bound to attract unwelcome guests as their customer base increase. It's only natural.
I think Facebook is more secure than other social networking sites. They have an additional layer of protection if you need it. I haven't really used twitter but tumblr is every simple and gullible.
Im not sure how you guys measured the secure part of this platform, since I feel FB lacks it very heavily. They have been filed for so many issues by many. True they lack the business perspective too but secure part is way huge than that for me.
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
Civil libertarians are outraged at the revelation the NSA is reportedly spying on more than one-third of Americans -- obtaining phone records from phone companies, in case it might need them for later use. Edward Snowden, the man who leaked details of that program, also revealed a second effort dubbed “Prism,” which represented a more aggressive grab of email and other communications. (See: Prism Exposes Unwritten Privacy Rules.)
While outsourcing can initially appear to deliver massive cost savings, some firms are starting to wake up to its hidden costs -- shipping, production latency, and quality control. But perhaps the biggest hidden cost of outsourcing is intellectual property (IP) theft.
The version of Windows 8.1 that Microsoft previewed this week is a step in the right direction, but it shows that Microsoft is still missing the boat in some ways.
Whether you’re an engineering firm that uses CAD for parts design, or an e-business that leverages Photoshop for user-interface graphics, you likely require a modest graphics-processing unit. In the old days, this was a daunting hurdle to innovation, but today, the situation has improved thanks to technologies like NVIDIA’s GRID and Microsoft’s RemoteFX. Such virtualized graphics protocols allow you to load-balance graphics-intensive workloads from virtual desktops on a server-side graphics card.
Take a trip down memory lane and imagine, if you will, a system-on-a-chip with Apple IIe-like specs -- 4KB of RAM and 32KB of flash. Add some modern niceties like an ARM Cortex-M0+ 32-bit pipeline, 12-bit DAC, and low-power UART, and you have Freescale's recently unveiled Kinetis KL02, which the company calls "the world's smallest ARM Powered MCU."
Facebook's Graph Search may face some profound challenges and risks, first, because Facebook users haven't been thinking of their posts as product reviews; and second, because Facebook will now have to contend with the social-network equivalent of SEO "gaming" of results.
A recent release of the popular TweetDeck app for Twitter power-users gives new life to software that had previously taken a wrong turn. Here's a quick walk-through of the new TweetDeck, to show you why it should be at the top of your Twitter toolkit.
Based on reactions in Nicole's Newsfeed, everyone hates this version of Facebook. This should matter to Facebook now that there's a real competitor on the scene named Google+.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
A growing number of HR managers are suspicious of individuals who do not take part in social media and view them as anti-social in real life as well as online.
Twitter's changes are clearly aimed at being more Facebook-like, and this is because both companies are vying to serve the mobile social network market. But can that market work for anybody, given how difficult it is to push ads to social-update readers?
Big-data and analytics tools enable marketers to understand customers as individuals, identifying unmet needs and addressing each customer as a "segment of one," says John Kennedy, VP corporate marketing, IBM.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE! REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?
To save this item to your list of favorite Internet Evolution content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
Email This
