We interviewed top marketing experts about the pros and cons of joining Tumblr.

Neil Patel of KissMetrics said, “moving to Tumblr as a business is silly. Sure, it has some social aspect to it, but due to its limitations you can’t optimize for SEO or conversion as you could with a more flexible platform.”

Moz’s Rand Fishkin shared Patel’s views saying, “it’s very unwise.”

“They don’t own or control the platform and Yahoo! could, at any time, change, shut down, sell, or stop supporting Tumblr. My advice is to never build your marketing base on a platform you don’t control.“

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Many people overlook Tumblr, but it has tremendous potential for SEO and social media marketing. I myself was slow to adopt it as a social media platform, but once I started using it I became hooked by its power and simplicity.

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There are 5 key benefits:

1) Dofollow links

First the biggie. Links from Tumblr, unlike most other social networks are dofollow. Tumblr is at its core a blogging platform, and you have full control of how your tumblrog appears, including using dofollow links on your site.

2) Great content discovery

Another great benefit of Tumblr is that it has a great content discovery system built into it, thanks to its use of hashtags. If you're ever looking for great images or memes, try searching Tumblr for the hashtag, and you'll find some good material.

3) Content testing ground

Another use for Tumblr is as a content testing ground. If you do a lot of social media marketing, you probably have tons of memes and images that you are considering posting to your Facebook page, or you if you create your own memes you may have different variations of a meme that you might want to test.

4) Microsites

Tumblr is the most popular microblogging platforms on the planet, which also makes it an ideal platform for setting up microsites. You won't get the same amount of flexibility as you would with say a self-hosted Wordpress blog, but tumblrogs are quick to set up, simple to manage, and free. And if you want to switch from using a tumblr.com subdomain to your own domain name, it's easy to switch to a domain name you own in the Tumblr settings.

5) Branding

Last, but certainly not least, Tumblr is another tool in your arsenal to promote your brand online. In addition to the other major social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Tumblr provides another opportunity for you to establish your web presence. It's another chance for your to engage with fans, build relationships with potential customers, and get your brand name out there, especially if you want to target a younger demographic. As the online marketer Pat Flynn always says, the best marketing strategy online is to Be Everywhere.

Getting Started on Tumblr Tumblr is a social networking and microblogging platform that laid it's roots in 2007.

1. Create a Great Name - Creating a name for your Tumblr is step one on your road to small business brand success. While the name of your blog is only a few small words, they’ll be the first impression of your entire company to prospective followers and client
2. Make Your Business Tumblr Worth Following - Remember to keep your language fresh and casual, something that will entice your followers to see your business as relatable.
3. Be Social - One way to keep your business’s brand in constant visibility among its blog’s followers is to be active in reading, commenting on and expressing interest in the things your followers post.
4. Find Your Tumblr Niche - Figure out what you want your brand’s persona to communicate and most especially, who you want it to communicate to.

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