Tumblr is a pretty big deal these days. In January, it hit a major threshold by announcing that the site sees 15 billion pageviews a month. That’s a lot of posts to sift through if you want to find major trends. That’s why Gnip and Tumblr are partnering up to offer marketing folks a data firehose.
Gnip announced via their blog that they are now the exclusive data firehose provider for Tumblr. For those not in the know, a data firehose is a constant stream of information and data detailing trends, posts and all the public data that passes through a social networking site at any given moment.
Gnip says that Tumblr now has 50 million new posts every day, 15 billion page views every month, 20 billion total posts and 300 percent traffic growth last year. All these numbers paint a massive data firehose that is constantly flowing with the conservations and trends that power Tumblr’s unique brand of social media.
What does Tumblr have that others, like Twitter, don’t? Gnip President and COO Chris Moody says that Tumblr is unique in that its conversations spread in reaction to “concepts and trends.” The mostly visual nature of Tumblr helps perpetuate this as celebrities and businesses post exclusive pictures to Tumblr to drum up conversation.
Tumblr VP of Product Derek Gottfrid agrees telling All Things D, “The richness of data that we have is more than 140 characters. We support seven different post types, and the half-life of a Tumblr post extends much more than a tweet.”
This is the kind of information that marketers want when it comes to figuring out what’s currently hot or the next big thing. Sure, Facebook and Twitter are pretty good indicators of these trends as well, but Tumblr has a lot to prove. By securing the exclusivity this early, Gnip is setting itself up for when Tumblr really takes off.
Gnip says the value of their data firehose comes in the form of marketers not missing a beat. If you were to just watch Tumblr, you might miss a fast moving trend. With the firehose, you’ll have constant access to past and present trends.
While Tumblr’s data firehose will help businesses and marketers out, you will want to check out these other tips for a successful business strategy on Tumblr. Tumblr has some work cut out for themselves too as they are “always actively looking for creative ways to help out brands on Tumblr.” The data firehose is a good first step.