Tumblr is aiming to follow in the footsteps of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter by attempting to attract UK brands and make more money from the platform.
The five-year-old micro-blogging platform, which allows users to post images and video, has signed We Are Social, Poke, AKQA, and Bartle Bogle Hegarty as its first UK agency partners.
The deal will give them access to Tumblr data and specialist training in a similar manner to Facebook's Preferred Developer program. It has signed 12 agencies globally.
Tumblr, which receives 16.8 billion page views monthly and hosts 80.5 million blogs, does not have a UK operation. The agency partnerships are intended to help them better use the platform for clients and boost creativity.
Foster's, women's fashion store Topshop, and luxury brand Pringle of Scotland are among the few UK companies using Tumblr to post content, with many preferring Facebook and Twitter for their social media advertising and brand building.
US brands have been quicker to use the format, with eBay, Coca-Cola, and Disney among those advertising on the site.
Tumblr recently started running paid-for campaigns for brands, after unveiling an ad format for users' dashboards in May. The following month, Adidas became the first brand to use the format, promoting a football blog associated with its sponsorship of Euro 2012.
UK agency leaders praised Tumblr for giving clients, and their customers, a rich experience.
Robin Grant, global MD of We Are Social, said Tumblr allows brands to "create a much more branded experience.”
"Tumblr offers something different to Facebook and Twitter in that its users skew a lot younger than other social networks and their behavior is very different. They curate more content than they create, giving brands the chance to get very rich content shared widely, assuming they make it appealing enough for their followers," he said.
Nick Farnhill, founder and partner at Poke, said: "Tumblr is a perfect example of the visual social web, and with more than 16 billion page views a month, there's energetic and passionate communities of interests that brands can, sensitively, contribute relevant content to and engage with."
This article originally appeared on the website of Marketing, PRWeek's sister publication under Haymarket Media.
