Today in Digital Marketing - Will Marketers Buy Tumblr’s Redemption Arc?

Episode Date: July 29, 2022

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There is a social media platform that's been gaining some traction lately and has us digital marketers firmly in its sights for our ad budgets. You know the name, start to the T. Yes, Tumblr. The site was hugely popular some years ago, but many people think it's on its way back and could finally be a big space for brands and marketers. Today, a special summer edition devoted to that topic. And with me to discuss all this, Gina Seibert. She is a PhD candidate in communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Welcome. Thank you for having me. It's our pleasure. All right, let's go back to the bare bones before we start talking about marketing and branding and ad dollars and all that stuff. Let's talk about for those people who may not even be familiar with it, what is Tumblr and what happened? Yeah, so Tumblr is a micro-blogging platform that has

been around since the late 2000s, early 2010s. What is unique about it is you sort of have this dashboard where you can post all types of media. So whereas on Twitter, you know, in the early stages of Twitter, it might have been, you know, short, mostly text. And still nowadays, it's short form textual posts along with images, but it's limited how much you can post. On Tumblr, you can have these really long form posts, you can have videos, audio, all these different things. What is also different about it is, you know, the metrics of seeing followers and things like that are not revealed to people. So whereas on Instagram, you would see, you know, that Kim Kardashian has, you know, 10 million followers

on Tumblr, you don't see that. So those sort of cues of popularity are not there. You know, it's a also the tagging system, which is similar to a lot of other platforms, where you know, you organize your posts, according to different categories, but also people use these tagging systems to like talk and add commentary there. Tumblr, you know, has that dashboard feed, like I was telling you about, which is a sort of ongoing stream of content, where you can see from people that you follow, and then you would reblog or basically repost content that you like or like that content so that it is moved onto your personal blog. And so you have your sort of personal but public facing blog that you can customize.

Right. And it was incredibly popular back in, I guess, the peak was sort of 2013, 2014. And then it just sort of dropped off the face of the planet. And why this was such a big hit was because Tumblr has always been quite lenient towards, you know, pornographic materials, sexually explicit materials. Its CEO, David Karp, originally said at one point that Tumblr is a great place for porn at some point in his earlier days. And so this was really distinct from a lot of platforms where like this, you know, for most of them, there's always been kind of a push against having content like that. But Tumblr, it was part of it sort of contributed to the identity that arose on Tumblr because sexual expression, you know, images and discourse around sex and sexuality were so free flowing. And most of the time, obviously, there were, you know, policies that sort of curtailed certain things. But it allowed like a sort of

culture, countercultural hub to form with young people, queer people, women, and, you know, also artists and sex workers, where you're able to sort of freely have these conversations and enjoy like seeing depictions of sex and sexuality, often outside of major mainstream porn websites. And so when this ban was announced, it was really a sort of taken as an assault on the identity that Tumblr users have cultivated and felt were was part of Tumblr and understood by Tumblr. And that was sort of a big disruptive moment for the platform and a violation of this sort of understanding between the owners and the users. So it was almost like a like an informal social contract had been broken. Yes, exactly. And I do talk about that in my research study I did on Tumblr and this band drawing off of

Rebecca McKinnon's work on Consent of the Network, which is a book she wrote about how there is, whether you like it or not, this sort of unspoken social contract between platform owners and users. And when things are violated in these platform design decisions or policy decisions, it's really more so a debate and a struggle over the value system, the meaning, the sort of identity of the platform itself is really what the debate is truly about at its core. You talk about a potential resurgence for Tumblr, and it may become more viable as a

platform for users. Of course, for marketers, that means potential advertising place. We are always looking for places to put ads that are inexpensive. So, for marketers, that means potential advertising place. We are always looking for places to put ads that are inexpensive. So, you know, that's certainly of interest. But before we get there, I want to ask, you know, about this porn ban. I mean, I guess my question is, why? Why did they do it? Like, there is still porn all over Twitter. Why did Tumblr decide to pull stakes? Yeah, and it's funny because a lot of Tumblr users migrated to Twitter afterwards because Twitter has so far been more hospitable to that. But really, what

gave way and why this ban came to be was because of advertising. Tumblr, you know, David Karp, the CEO, was pretty vocal about not wanting disruptive, just traditional advertising on Tumblr, where you'd be scrolling through and you'd see these ads had nothing to do with you and sort of mess up the kind of vibe he was going for. But once Tumblr was acquired by different companies like Yahoo in 2013 and Verizon in 2017, these companies really wanted to find ways

to make advertising more hospitable on the platform and one of the problems they faced is that advertisers didn't want to advertise next to pornography in a lot of cases and so these efforts to sort of find ways to push out pornography on tumblr sort of stretched back to 2013 but what really sort of amped these efforts up was Verizon's acquiring of Tumblr in 2017 and also the passage of FOSTA-SESTA, which was federal legislation that made platform operators like Verizon potentially liable for sex trafficking or sex work on their platform. And so eventually this culminated in the Apple store being taking Tumblr off of the app store site for not successfully combating child sexual abuse materials on Tumblr. And so Verizon sort of took this as an as a opening to not only handle some of this stuff on the site, but also to basically totally eradicate porn that was not abusive materials anyway, in order to kind of better monetize the site and attract advertisers.

So that was kind of their, they used the guise of trying to combat child sexual abuse materials to sort of do a blanket ban on porn, whereas other problematic behaviors on the site weren't addressed. So users kind of saw through that, interestingly, from the very beginning. And history sort of repeated itself recently with OnlyFans, which is a website for creators. Often, you know, it's used for a lot of things. It's even used for like cooking shows and so on. It's sort of like Patreon in that way.

But the vast majority, I think it's fair to say, of creators on there are selling some sort of sex work, usually photographs or videos and things like that. And then the CEO was like, yeah, we're not going to be in porn anymore. And there was just a massive backlash. And I believe within like a few days, if not hours, they basically reversed it and said, JK, JK. So you believe that that we may soon be seeing a resurgence, though, with Tumblr potentially coming back, if not necessarily into great usage, at least into kind of some sort of meaningful presence again. Walk us through that. Why? actually in that article is that by only focusing on whether or not Tumblr is in decline or on a verge of resurgence, we kind of end up limiting our view of what Tumblr is and platforms like it because we are so focused on this either or approach to something like Tumblr. And so, you know, I really think that there are places on the Internet where it doesn't need to sort of fall under the big tech monopoly, bigger is better paradigm that we're so used to now.

And it can kind of be this smaller niche subcultural place where people, you know, enjoy themselves and it doesn't have to be about growing. But, of course, Tumblr is trying to grow. And I think one thing that is pointing towards Tumblr growing and resurging in certain ways is how it has been retaken up in youth culture to, you know, sort of talk about Tumblr aesthetics. They call it Tumblr core. Vogue actually, you know, wrote about Tumblr aesthetics, which is this sort of 2010s, like, all grungy, hipstery look coming back in. Are we talking about the design of the website? Tumblr, you know, with they enjoy, there's a certain taste around music that was like hipster, rock, alt, punk type of thing, maybe. And this type of Tumblr girl aesthetic who wore, you know, black, you know, dark, dark eyeliner, makeup, you know, chokers

and things like that. And so there's this whole sort of aesthetic and culture around like Tumblr in its heyday. And, you know, we live in a culture, but also youth culture nowadays, very enraptured with nostalgia. And I think Tumblr has sort of gotten swept up in this nostalgia wave where, you know, people on TikTok and Instagram and things like that, young people are, you know, putting together videos saying, I'm doing the Tumblr girl aesthetic or I'm doing like, you know, people on TikTok and Instagram and things like that, young people are, you know, putting together videos saying I'm doing the Tumblr girl aesthetic or I'm doing like, you know, Tumblr core in this way. And so Tumblr is becoming more visible, even if people aren't using it among younger people in a way that they probably never expected as a company. And I think, like, of course, like that type of exposure is always good for a company. And they are seeing gains with that Gen Z demographic in recent years. And I think part of that is because of this nostalgia culture and this way that, you know,

collective memory about things on the internet like Vine, you know, really helps frame the significance of a platform outside of metrics like growth or decline or how much profit it makes. And I think that's what's really interesting about this move and, you know, this change for Tumblr. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen.

Of course, between now and a potential future where Tumblr is back in the social scene and people are sort of being part of the culture again, there are obstacles in its way. What are a couple of the big obstacles that you see before, you know, groups like digital marketers, for instance, may trust it again or be comfortable with it as a marketing platform? What does Tumblr have to do between now and then to get to that dreamland? You know, that's a that's a tough question because, you know, constantly Tumblr is reminded of this 2018 content ban, this not safe for work content ban, which means like content you don't want to see, like your boss looking over your shoulder at work is what they call it, not safe for work. Pornography, right? And once, for instance, Twitter was supposed to be acquired by Elon Musk for that brief moment, a lot of people were talking about

moving back to Tumblr and Tumblr itself was like, welcome back. We've always been here. But everyone else was like, we remember that you did this ban and you're the reasons we left to begin with because you violated this social contract that we had about what was permissible on the website. And so interestingly enough, like something Tumblr might want to do is, you know, bring like revoke the policy and bring back or allow sexually explicit content more so on their website now than they do now. But the conundrum is, are marketers and advertisers willing to, like, you know, be potentially advertised alongside, like, pornographic material? And, of course, like, you know, Tumblr is not entirely a porn website. There is plenty of other content on there.

So I guess sort of thinking about whether or not, you know, we advertisers can be comfortable with potentially being beside or in between content at times they might not find like, you know, appropriate. But also this tension that Tumblr has where they're not trying to scare away advertisers. Tumblr has always struggled to monetize the platform, you know, in a very real way, because users have been very resistant to that. And they're trying different ways of doing that now. I think they're doing like sort of like tipping jars things. You can kind of pay to have your post promoted in different ways. And so I think one way advertisers would do well on a platform like Tumblr is to instead, instead of trying to

do like the drop an ad in the middle of the feed thing, cultivate a presence on Tumblr, have a, you know, a blog and make it a sort of personality because we've seen a lot of trends with companies recently giving voice and like almost absurdist voice to their brand. Like we can trace that back to Denny's, which had an account on Tumblr who'd had this sort of absurdist persona on Tumblr that got a lot of attention and got a lot of people to actually like Denny's. And so I think just thinking about, you know, where, you know, adapting your advertising strategy to the platform, even if it's out of the sort of traditional mindset, is something

that is like increasingly important and very, I think, a very key part of successfully, you know, advertising on a place like Tumblr, especially to young people who have grown up awash in advertisements. And they if you want to reach people like that, you need to be smarter, sharper, maybe a little bit more fun with your approach versus just the sort of traditional ways that have been around for decades, right? It does always seem to be that approach. And it always makes sense. I don't know of a single platform, whether we're talking TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, or any of these sites where the really good advice is, listen, assimilate yourself in the

culture, be part of the site itself, as opposed to just trying to capitalize on the audiences on the site. And I, you know, I would suspect that Tumblr has a more, a much more challenging brand safety issue than even, you know, Reddit, which I guess Reddit is a somewhat close comparison in the sense that it's sort of a unique structure. It has tons and tons of content. It has its own culture, very much so on Reddit. You know, it is almost a language of its own in terms of sort of the in jokes that are used there. But one advantage I think that Reddit has is that everything is sort of grouped into these very clearly defined subreddits or communities.

And so, you know, Reddit takes the approach of no one's allowed to advertise on any subreddit until we manually activate that for, you know, like, for instance, last week, we were reporting that, you know, for whatever reason, you can advertise in the drunk subreddit, but you cannot advertise in the red hot chili peppers subreddit. Who knows why they made that decision, but they did. Whereas, you know, Tumblr, as you mentioned earlier, I think has a lot more of a challenge because it doesn't quite have that strict individual discrete communities. There's a lot of discovery through hashtag and a lot of discovery through reblogging. And so it would strike me as quite difficult for them to really put any real brand safety controls. I should have asked, did they reverse the porn decision? Is porn back in or is it still banned? The ban was never formally reversed, but, you know, sort of

monitoring something like this on a platform so big, even though it's smaller than obviously the biggest platforms we know, is not perfect. And so users would say that there is still porn on Tumblr and that it was never completely gone. And even in the past few years, it, you know, is sort of not ramped up to anywhere near its like pre-ban amounts. But there's still a presence of that now several years out. And so whereas the ban is still there and if it was gone, like there would be a lot, it'd be a lot different. I don't think that it was truly able to eradicate it completely. And can brands advertise right now on it? Do they have that capability other than promoting posts?

Yes, I believe so. So from what I see, and this isn't my realm of expertise, of course, this is your realm of expertise with advertising and marketing. But from what I see is at least right after the ban a couple years out, there would be posts like embedded, that sort of traditional advertising we see on Instagram and stuff like that. But the targeting wasn't as sophisticated as Meta and Google do. And so you would be scrolling on your account and see a quite seemingly random ad that has really nothing to do with anything that you would be interested in. And it would be kind of a joke among Tumblr users that they would see these ridiculous, out-of-pockets, completely divorced from them ads. And it would become kind of content in and of itself. And sort of, you know, sort of joke about, you know, Tumblr decaying. And there's always been this sort of self critical, reflexive culture in Tumblr, where, you know, they would

critique the website that they call the blue hell site, and how like, kind of crappy it can be at times. And so this is kind of, you know, the advertising there that happened in the wake of the ban kind of was part of that culture. And so I think now I'm assuming they've gotten better at that, but it was definitely like a couple like stumbles along the way. Well, I guess in Tumblr's defense and maybe in their favor, the entire industry is kind of going in that direction. You know, we're seeing loss of attribution data from iPhones. We're seeing meta pulling interests that we used to target.

So, you know, at least maybe we're all in, you know, instead of just Tumblr being in a crappy space, we're all kind of in a crappy space. And perhaps that will help Tumblr down the line. What do you think the impact of TikTok is going to have on Tumblr? Does Tumblr genuinely have any chance at all when we look at it in the scope of this massive TikTok train hurtling down the tracks? Right. Yeah. You know, TikTok definitely is a challenge to Tumblr. I think a lot of the sort of culture and characteristics and maybe even part of the appeals of Tumblr have actually been transported to TikTok. Tumblr was always a hub for social justice warriors, what they called it. A lot of social justice discourse, exposing users to these political issues, which is big on TikTok. A lot of the problems

around, you know, diet culture and pro anorexia content and stuff like that was really big on Tumblr has also been, you know, translated to TikTok, but also the absurdist humor, the sort of like, you know, really strange type of humor is very also native to Tumblr and has been translated to TikTok. And so I think what you have is a lot of movement there. And because TikTok has become so big and is like a locus in teen and youth culture, Tumblr does face a lot of challenges and sort of bringing people away from that. But what they do have as a value, as an appeal to young people, is their sort of countercultural persona, right? There's plenty of young people that want to resist the mainstream or go against the mold in certain ways. And Tumblr really can, you know,

brand itself in that way or continue to brand itself in that way and embrace that persona as this spot that's not the mainstream, as this sort of smaller haven for people that don't, you know, want to be on the big TikTok. And I think that would be a way that they could sort of, you know, appeal to these younger generations more effectively. Well, it was certainly a thought provoking article. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Gina Seibert, she is a PhD candidate in communication at the University of Pennsylvania. You can read her piece on this at theconversation.com. Look for the article called Tumblr's Enduring Appeal Reveals the Potency of the Web's Cultural Memory. Well, that will do it for the week. Today in digital marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital

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