Small businesses have a lot of social media platforms to choose from. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogspot, WordPress, Google+, and the two or three that popped into existence in the time it took you to read this sentence.

Another social media tool outlet that continues to gain popularity with small businesses is Tumblr. At first glance to an untrained eye, Tumblr would be no different than a Blogspot or WordPress blog. In a few case, the platforms are very similar. But with Tumblr, ease of access and the ability to targtet a demographic audience is much easier.

At its heart, Tumblr is actually much more than a simple blogging platform. It serves as something of a community that lets users share content while interacting with others that share their same interests. If you cater to a certain demographic, it is much easier to find people that would be interested in your services or products on Tumblr than any other blogging platform. It’s almost like Twitter without the character limit, but so much more.

Tumblr seems to be able to work magic based in simple images. For instance, if you own a bakery and post simple pictures of cakes that weren’t even made in your bakery, that image can catch attention quickly and get shared with hundreds or thousands of other Tumblr sites. In the matter of a day or so, you can go from a handful of followers to thousands.

The platform also allows businesses to communicate special offers and sales to customers or potential clients in a way that is almost conversational and far removed from the spam-like language that is often found on Twitter and Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, the Dashboard feature on Tumblr functions very much like Facebook’s popular news feed. It lets you stay up to date with what your followers are doing, reading, watching, and so on. This allows for more interactivity among users. For small businesses, when used correctly, this could be used as a huge advantage. It allows you to stay abreast of developing trend without wasting tons of time.

So if you haven’t given Tumblr a chance, it’s certainly worth trying. Even if it’s not a platform you feel you can master, it’s important to have your toes in as many social media pools as possible.