Welcome to Bridgeline Digital’s daily links post on the B-Line blog named “Around The Web.” We’ll be checking in every morning with relevant (and entertaining) pieces found across the Internet about Content Management, Marketing, SEO news, and General Business News. Our hope is this will become part of your morning, a detour you enjoy as you sip on your third cup of coffee before noon. And fear not, this space is not a one-way street: We want you, dear reader, to interact with us; tell us what you like, what you hate, and what you want more of in the comments section and on Twitter.

Around The Web

Mashable has a look at Tumblr‘s rise to the Mount Rushmore of Social Media platforms. The micro-blogging hosting service has increased its monthly page views from 7 billion to 20 billion … in two months. That’s 60 days, or 1,440 hours, or 5,184,000 seconds.

Wait, where was I?

… I think we can all agree, that’s what we call a trend.

For some perspective, Twitter gets 5.9 billion page views a month (though, as the article states, many visitors access Twitter through its mobile app). And because I know you’re wondering, Facebook collects more than 1 trillion page views a month.

If your company hasn’t already, maybe it’s time to call a meeting with the marketing department and come up with a few fun ideas for a Tumblr feed. The problem — or advantage — is, perhaps more than any other forum, Tumblr requires creativity over sheer content. We aren’t talking text-based content; Tumblr feeds are largely visually-based, and replete with (sometimes) hysterical memes. Unlike other platforms, virality (not consistency) is at the core of what makes a Tumblr feed work. We’re not looking for singles here; you’re swinging for the fences.

(Since we’re talking Tumblr, I feel it’s necessary to mention GIFs of cats. Lots of cats.)

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Also from Mashable, Eric Larson has retailers reacting to the new study by Price Grabber on mobile eCommerce during the holidays.

Some raw figures from the Price Grabber poll via Larson:

The study polled 2,500 smarthphone users across the country. Of them, 32% said they planned to use shopping apps to use for the holidays; 42% said they planned to buy small- and big-ticket items through smartphones. 75% agreed they would do some form of shopping online.

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On Directing Marketing News, Molly Glover Gallatin says what most know, but can’t comprehend: Your return on social media engagement is knowledge and insight into your customer’s behavior, not revenue (well not initially, anyway). While everyone is consigned to the fact relationship-building is valuable, it’s tough to prioritize its value over revenue (even if it’s temporary), but Gallatin makes an array of salient points.

Via DMN:

We need to look at social media in a way that’s different from the way we regard other digital media channels. It can’t just be about the investment returns, as it is with other channels. Thinking about social media as purely a revenue-generator is 100 percent the wrong approach. This is not a direct-response medium. It’s an engagement medium. It’s about building relationships.

That’s the real value of social media. By gaining followers and learning, in aggregate, what they like and dislike, which brands they follow and which they respond to, what they share, and so forth, you gain a wealth of knowledge about your audience. That knowledge can provide the information marketers need to build effective communications further down the funnel, when it will directly impact ROI.

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Drew McLellan, of Marketing Profs, says the three reasons people avoid creating videos for their organization are that they hate being on camera, don’t have the budget, and can’t envision all the nuances that go into producing their own video. McLellan looks at each reason, retorts its validity, then gives you logic and simple steps to bypass each barrier.

The biggest case for using online video content, of course, are the facts McLellan regurgitates at the beginning of the piece.

Over 88 million people watch an online video on a given day.
Online video is currently 40% of consumer Internet traffic.
75% of C-suite executives watch work-related videos weekly.