But Pinterest isn’t the only social network magazines are employing to spread their reach – Tumblr and Instagram are continuing to make waves with their ease of use and sleek presentation.
Tumblr, which presents a more unique ecosystem than its competitor blog platforms, uses a one-click recommendation system, making it significantly easier for content to go viral. The strong visuals and short, snack-size content provide strong leads to featured off-Tumblr content.
Who’s using Tumblr effectively? Vogue
uses strong photos from their slideshows, all of which link back to Vogue’s website. Their Tumblr design, which is minimal but branded, also links directly to the current issue and a Photo of the Day.
The Economist posts infographics and
covers to Tumblr, providing a glimpse into world news in an easy-to-read format.
Most interesting, though, is The Daily Beast Company’s Newsweek, which has immersed itself fully and unabashedly in all things Tumblr.
Newsweek posts snippets of news from
around the internet, interacts with its readers, posting their remarks, and even goes as far as posting political animated GIFs, a staple of the Tumblr ecosystem. Given the average 405 notes per post (for the first page alone), it appears to be working. Targeted, holiday content, such as Newsweek’s reblogged Valentine’s Day post has also been a hit (the posted graphic, reblogged from theonlymagicleftisart, is at 20,451 notes as of this writing).
Sports Illustrated is also using Tumblr effectively, posting archive photos and pieces in conjunction with a dedicated @si_vault Twitter account.
“For sports fans who want to go to ESPN,
Yahoo or other sites, this is one thing those sites can’t and don’t offer — huge collections of photos that have appeared in our magazine over several decades, as well as ones that never made it to print,” Andy Gray, the vault manager told Mashable last year. “The first day I looked through our photo database, I was blown away and just thought it could be something.”