Ever find yourself scrolling through the same three social media networks, just constantly refreshing for new followers and engagements and content? If so, it may be time to branch out to the lesser-status platforms. And I do mean for your marketing! Everyone knows that Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn are the top dogs when it comes to digitally marketing your business with Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest right behind. But what about the social channels that exist beyond those?
Marketing On Tumblr
This social media microblogging network is where communities gather. Established in 2007, Tumblr is currently owned by Automattic, the operator of WordPress. Users primarily use the website and app to circulate memes, world news, aesthetics, personal feelings, and make friends with common interests. The platform also newly hails itself as the “Home of Fandom,” as a significant amount of its userbase utilizes it for creating and sharing content for endless mainstream, cult, and niche media.
To apply digital marketing strategies to Tumblr, you will need to create an account (“blog”) for your brand. Customize your blog to your design scheme by background and text colors, header photo, profile photo, profile description, and “theme” (visual organization style – vertically like Facebook, checkered like Pinterest, etc.). You’ll also want to add your brand’s name, niche, and other relevant keywords to your Followed Hashtags right off the bat. Once you’re all set up, it’s time to start posting!
Most of Tumblr’s userbase are Millennials and Gen Z. This means you’ll want to optimize for audiences by both industry interest and generational taste. Utilizing snackable content like short videos, GIFs, and trendy memes is a great wait to catch their attention. Tumblr is also a key platform for your brand voice to come off as humorous and relatable.
Though you can sponsor your posts for more visibility, the best ways to gain traction on Tumblr are engagement and proper hashtagging. As a community-based platform, you’ll seldom find any “influencers” to spread the reach for you. But if you use ample hashtags, highly engage with your industry’s community, and even start or join a relevant topic on the app’s Group Message feature, you’ll garner much more attention for your business.
Brands Tumblr Loves:
· DreamWorks Animation Studios
· Denny’s
Marketing On Reddit
Just like Tumblr, Reddit (est. 2005) is a community-centric social networking platform. However, instead of curating their niches into one flowing experience via hashtag, users contribute and communicate on “subreddits” – webpages dedicated to a single topic. And there is a topic for literally anything and everything.
The audience base is mostly Millennials, but ones who may not spend as much time or money on platforms optimized to create micro-moments like Snapchat and TikTok. You can afford to take a more authoritative—though still inclusive and welcoming—tone and longer content. Again, you’ll want to highly engage with your brand’s relevant Reddit community, but you’ll benefit from the network’s paid ad options more here, too.
Think of Reddit as Tumblr, Yelp, and Facebook all rolled into one. It is perhaps the internet’s largest space for word-of-mouth marketing right now. Just earlier this year, the power of Reddit was proven by the GameStop short squeeze, a global economic event purposefully triggered by users on the r/wallstreetbets subreddit where participants discuss stock and option trading.
Brands Reddit Loves:
· Xfinity
· Absolut
· Poshmark
Marketing On Medium
Originally developed as a long-form companion platform to Twitter in 2012, Medium is a social journalism site where you may have read some of my own articles. Here, thought leaders, publications, and bloggers can write, post, and share in a keyword-centric manner similar to Tumblr and Reddit. The biggest difference is that being a popular writer on Medium pays for itself via its Partner Program, just like YouTube pays its top creators.
Since Medium is less of a social network than a blogging platform, this is where your strategy will champion content marketing. Publish engaging, credible prose about your products/services, case studies, company news, industry insights, and relevant lifestyle tips and trends. Use their easy editor tools to break up text with pictures, GIFs, and videos. And definitely remember to funnel your audience into action through each article.
Just make sure not to press “Publish” and think that your job is done. Share, remarket, and reshare again! You can absolutely build a captive audience around your brand’s Medium blog as long as you nurture it the way you would your social media, email campaign, and website content.
Brands Medium Loves:
· Netflix
· Airbnb
Marketing On NextDoor
Founded in 2008, NextDoor is a hyperlocal social networking service where users can get to know their neighborhood. Participants can befriend other people in their immediate geography as well as learn about and engage with local businesses and public agencies. It brings together the social aspect of Facebook with the business aspect of Yelp or Google MyBusiness, in a single accessible and aesthetic online service.
By utilizing NextDoor, your brand will immediately have access to audiences around your location to encourage useful word-of-mouth marketing. Plus, you can nurture leads and customer/client relationships more intimately. This is important not only on the principle of supporting local business but especially for businesses impacted by the pandemic.
Feel your brand is more on the Enterprise scale? Fear not, NextDoor can still be your friend. You can sponsor ads to increase awareness, promotion reach, and lead generation.
Brands NextDoor Loves:
· Walmart
· Hershey
While it may seem like some new hot-shot social media network pops up every other week (looking at you, Clubhouse — readers, let me know how you’re feeling about that one so far), these four tertiary platforms have made it clear that they’re here not only to stay but here to help your brand succeed. If you’d like to learn about more ways to boost your digital marketing strategy, check out my blog and 10 Minute Marketing podcast. Please feel free to contact me on my website or social media @sonjacrystal with any questions, topic suggestions, or to work with me!
