How Savvy Teenagers Are Turning the Entire Internet into Their Plaything
One of my absolute favorite parts of the internet is the prevalence of .gifs and memes. Turns out I’m not alone. If you’ve ever been on Tumblr, you know what I’m talking about. A couple things you need to know about Tumblr. First, Yahoo! recently bought the social media site for about $1.1B to compete with the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Second, the traffic on Tumblr isn’t nearly the size of Facebook, but the thing that differentiates it is the fact that it’s users are SUPER engaged and really young…like high school and middle school young. It’s low-key the best social media platform for these baes.
Last year the Washington Post ran a piece calling Tumblr the “New Ground Zero of the Internet.” You may have recalled a certain dress that nearly caused an all-out war among internet users or how one of America’s favorite gymnasts was less than impressed. It’s this kind of viral content that keeps Tumblr users ridiculously engaged, and it the kind of thing that marketers are beginning to take note. What we’re seeing is this phenomenon of 14yr olds as some of the best content marketers the world has ever seen. Content providers and big online companies are beginning to take note, especially as they start to consider their options for distributing their digital content.
The concept that these Tumblr users have brought to light is the power and influence of content marketing. The big takeaway for brands is that if you can consistently put out content that people delight in, then there’s no doubt that you’re going to accumulate a huge following that can be optimized for a massive online platform. Content is certainly king, but, as these Tumblr teens quickly recognized, having a platform is definitely queen.
New Republic senior editor Elspeth Reeve wrote an eye-opening piece titled “The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens” in which she details the rise of a handful of teens that grew massive Tumblr followings, turned them into advertising platforms, and made hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 2–3 year period. For a lot of these teenage authors and curators, Tumblr gives them the opportunity to post engaging content without the vulnerability of putting their own name or face out there for the world to see. It’s like being a really powerful stand-up comedian who only performs behind a curtain, the guys who wrote the song Feel Good Inc, or the pop star known as Sia who only appears in public behind a wig. When Reeve interviewed the teenage founders of the gigantic Tumblr account So-Relatable, they admitted that this was a draw for them as well when they said, “Tumblr is a really safe space to make these observations out in the public where everyone can see but no one knows it’s you.” Fast forward to a couple of years down the road, and these young people turned their ironic musings into a gigantic advertising platform that was earning anywhere from $2,000-$20,000 per month.
How did they get so large and do it so fast? Personally, I’ve added 500,000 Facebook followers in two years, and I know for a fact that there’s no “secret sauce” to making your content go viral. However, there are some things that you must take into account if you want to give your content the best opportunity to perform well. Here are 3 principles that you need to keep in mind when creating content and building a platform:
1). Does your content connect with your audience? — The first thing you need to take into account when creating your content is your audience. Are you posting with your audience in mind? If you are trying to grow a large audience then you need to focus on creating content that adds value to people’s lives. People will keep coming back if they find value in your content. People who have massive Tumblr accounts are absolute pros when it comes to this type of content. They basically have their own language and they connect directly with their audience by posting content that their audience enjoys immensely.
2). Is it shareable? — This all starts with this value-add concept. If you create content that your audience finds valuable, then you’ll begin to create champions of your brand. These champions essentially become your organic brand ambassadors and do all the marketing work for you. Tumblr accounts like So-Relatable create cult-type followings because their content is so sharable. With that in mind, it would behoove you to make your content easily sharable on your platform through some sort of social media integration. Social share buttons should do the trick.
3). Are you considering the effects that timing has on your content? — The big saying in the retail space is “Location, Location, Location” and I’d posit that the timing of posting digital content has a similar effect. The Mcayla is not impressed meme never would have taken off if it weren’t being circulated during the olympics. Additionally, it’s important to know at what time your audience is the most engaged when building a digital footprint. In my experience, the best way to find it out is through trial & error. Yes it is true, there are better business practices regarding timing your posts, but if your own data is showing something different then go with that data.
Again, teenagers on the internet are some of the best content marketers in the industry. They have their own way of communicating which is easily understood among their peers and almost entirely tailored for their audience. According to the Washington Post, the online content website Buzzfeed sources the majority of their material from Tumblr. This means that teenage Tumblr accounts are literally taking over the internet. The bottom line is that there’s a tendency for big brands, corporations, and small businesses to get caught up in the “latest and greatest” when it comes to marketing techniques. The truth is, we could really benefit from taking a page or two out of the playbooks of some of these Tumblr accounts and some of these accidental teenage marketing geniuses.
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