“Keep Portland Weird.”
It’s a slogan that’s all too familiar to the Pacific Northwest and especially to the Portland Trail Blazers’ fan base, who would self-identify as quirky, eccentric and of course, weird.
So, the idea of utilizing the niche social media platform, Tumblr, naturally coincides with the Trail Blazers’ following, according to Dewayne Hankins, Vice President of Marketing/Digital.
“Tumblr is a training ground for other social media platforms,” Hankins added. “It’s best used as a place to share images, fan artwork and animated gifs that might make some sense. …Stuff that catches fire on Tumblr we share on other platforms.”
In 2015 — where it’s a race to the latest and greatest channel — Tumblr exists as a lost social outlet which is rarely discussed in the sports world despite having 229 million active blogs and total users stretching north of 420 million (including both visitors and blog owners). For comparison’s sake, Instagram reports about 300 million users while Twitter has about 290.
As a side note, for this story alone, a handful of well-recognizable teams and brands declined comment.
I’ve written stories on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram/Vine and Snapchat over the past 15 months, and everyone that I’ve reached out to for a quote has wanted to chat. For a platform that has been around for over eight years now, it’s clear that sports teams, brands and leagues are still finding their way, if you will.
The Trail Blazers have operated its account for roughly two years and as Hankins described, the “tone, text and feel” for the microblogging site is certainly unique compared to the more popular platforms.
“Tumblr is an informal stage and you can have a different attitude, tone and edge and not worry about it coming off the wrong way,” he said.
Through trial and error, Hankins and his digital team have seen what works: humorous, animated gifs along with pop culture memes, such as a recent House of Cards mention, seem to resonate with the Trail Blazers’ faithful.
“You know you’ll have a home run on Tumblr when you have a pop culture reference. It’s a way to show personality and be engaging with fans without disparaging a team or league,” Hankins said.
Re-blogging fans’ artwork also allows the team to publicly showcase their fresh and engaging content. Hankins estimates that nearly 50 percent of Portland’s content in the past year has beem fan-generated.
Even with the success of the account, Tumblr is not top of mind when it comes to the Trail Blazers’ social strategy. Anyone in the sports space would be hard pressed to find a team, brand or league who considers Tumblr one of the heavy hitters in the social world.
But why exactly is that the case?
“My sense is that it's just not seen as a viable option and there are only so many platforms a team can be on before resources are stretched thin,” said Dr. Jimmy Sanderson, Assistant Sports Communications/Social Media Professor at Clemson University. “I suspect as well that many teams see photo/video as being more optimal on Instagram and Snapchat, and storytelling can be done through Facebook and Twitter, or even a site like Exposure.”
Since Tumblr has such a niche audience and demographic — which is skewed younger than both Facebook and Twitter — the platform just does not make sense for some teams or brands.
Andy Gray, Senior Producer with Sports Illustrated and the curator for the news outlet’s Tumblr, started digging into the ‘SI Vault’ a few years ago and resurrected the full online archive of photos. Now, the page has nearly twice as many followers as the Twitter account, a fact that is still slightly odd to Gray considering the Twitter account has been in existence for about seven years versus almost five for Tumblr.
Gray cited a few reasons why maybe Tumblr has not struck a cord with sports entities, the first again being the user who lives on the platform. The second? The resource component, as Sanderson described above.
“Social media is a 24/7 commitment,” Gray added. “Teams have to keep up with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vine and Snapchat. Tumblr is just one more platform. Right now, it’s not worth it because what you’re putting into it isn’t what you’re getting out of it.”
Yet, while Tumblr’s general usage is less, the tangible benefits are there, as Gray outlined.
“It was recently ‘National Puppy Day,’ and we put one or two photos on Instagram and everyone is like, ‘Oh, those are really cool.’ Then they move on with their day. You can put the same two photos on Tumblr and then people are like, ‘Oh, wow. I want to see more of them.’ People then can click on the links on your website and get a little lost in the site, which is what you want. From a business standpoint, Tumblr is more beneficial (than Instagram).”
Tumblr is like any social media platform, though. The target audience must be on the channel and the justification for utilizing the platform must align with the already-existing social accounts for a team or brand. Tumblr may continue to remain a third or fourth-tier platform for the general sports community — and that’s perfectly ‘OK.’
“Tumblr hasn’t come in and knocked people’s socks off enough to make it a permanent part of their internet rotation,” Gray said. “… If a sports team came out with a kick ass Tumblr feed, people would definitely take notice. You might see other teams using it.”
