Tumblr has been in the news a lot lately. Getting acquired by Yahoo! will do that. However, for many, the blogging network is rarely talked about as a recruiting medium.
Granted, Tumblr is no LinkedIn when it comes to sourcing your next great executive. However, the service does offer a potential trove of potential candidates to source.
Let’s start with who’s on Tumblr. Fortunately, the service has added Quantcast tracking code to its HTML, so demographic information is publicly available and about as accurate as you’re going to get.
You can check the data on your own, but here are the broad strokes. Tumblr users are:
- Young (18-34)
- Single
- No Kids
- Global
- Diverse
- College Educated
- Mobile*
*Mobile app data is not calculated via Quantast, so it’s an under-reported datapoint, however, other data supports this.
If this is the kind of audience you’re looking for, read on, Tumblr just might be a place you want to start visiting. And if you’re going to do some recruiting there, here are some tips to get you started:
- Join. You’ll need to make the decision to join as a company or an individual. You’ll have better luck interacting as a human being, but Yahoo! will likely be making corporate participation easier and normal in the future as advertising options open-up.
- URL. You’ll have the option of having a Tumblr subdomain (myname.tumblr.com, for example) or a domain of your choice. Either way, consider having a domain name with keywords representing your recruitment goals. You could be hiringengineers.tumblr.com or jobsatcompanyname.com.
- Presentation. Get yourself a nice theme and make it look lived-in and cared for. Don’t go with the out-of-the-box Tumblr theme you get when you first sign-up.
- Search. Searching by hsahtags can be very effective. Searching #nursing or #carnegie mellon, for instance, will reveal a variety of users talking about those topics.
- Explore. Click on these profiles and checkout what these people are sharing. There could also be links to other hashtags that will help you learn more similar topics.
- Follow. If you see a candidate who looks appealing, follow them. Following people, like most other social platforms, is key to success. And doing this means that user’s posts will start showing up in your main feed.
- Participate. Now that you’re following prime candidates, interact with them and be part of the Tumblr community. This largely comes down to “hearting” their posts or reblogging them. When you do these things, the user will be made aware of it (and hopefully go checkout your page / jobs as a result).
- Discuss. Like any blog, Tumblr allows you to comment on posts. And some blog posts will actually just be questions that you can answer directly. Just don’t be spammy by simply leaving a link to your jobs page.
- Follow the followers. Many Tumblogs showcase the other users who follow them. Check them out. There’s a chance birds of a feather flock together.
- Be excellent. Similar to No. 3, don’t let users see a ghost town when they come checkout your tumblog. The good news is, unlike most blog platforms, Tumblr makes it really easy to share content. Publishing YouTube videos, pics and famous quotes are a breeze. Subject lines are also optional.
- Drive awareness. Add a Tumblr widget or button to your career site and other social channels. If you haven’t communicated with your applicants in awhile, sending them a “Hey, we’re on Tumblr” email might be a good idea to boost your numbers.
It’s a lot to take in. Adding another social platform to your daily activities may seem like overkill, especially one as quirky as Tumblr. But with 200 million monthly users and now Yahoo!’s muscle behind it, Tumblr is certainly one to put on your radar.
Disclosure – Tumblr is a Jobscore client.
