On Monday morning, Gap issued a call on Tumblr for creators to share, through an original piece of content, what “blue” means to them — blue being, of course, the color of Gap’s logo and of its signature product, the blue jean.

The four winning submissions, as determined by Gap, will be distributed through a mobile ad takeover on Tumblr on Aug. 29. On that day, Gap will purchase every single mobile ad Tumblr runs, the first brand to do so. Tumblr began running mobile ads in late April. The company says its mobile userbase is growing rapidly, and is expected to overtake desktop traffic by early 2014, founder and CEO David Karp has said previously.

By targeting Tumblr’s young, share-happy user base, Gap is betting that it can create a new “pop culture moment” on the Internet, Rachel Tipograph, global director of digital and social media at Gap, tells Mashable. “Pop culture doesn’t really start on TV

anymore,” she says. “Pop culture starts on the Internet. When you think about what community is creating pop culture on the Internet, it’s Tumblr. When you think about what community is creating pop culture on the Internet, it’s Tumblr.”

In a way, Gap is using Tumblr as its own creative agency. “We wanted to partner with the best content creators, give them a chance to make the Back to Blue brief, and then take the best pieces of content and turn them into mobile ads,” Tipograph explains. Winners will not be given cash compensation for their work; the compensation is in the exposure, Tipograph says. She declined to say how much Gap is paying for the mobile takeover.

In addition to the Tumblr push, Gap is making the usual buys in print, outdoor, direct and in-store marketing, plus a return to TV for the first time in four years. The apparel giant has also partnered with two dozen “influencers,” including MTV’s Tanisha Long, to create 250 pieces of content to distribute on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Vine and Tumblr over the next three months. A spokesperson for the company describes it as Gap’s “broadest-reaching campaign in the company’s modern history.”

Image: Gap

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The filing also reveals Tumblr CEO and founder David Karp’s compensation package. In addition to the estimated $250 million in cash and $29 million in stock he received for selling Tumblr, he’ll also receive a salary of $10 million a year and an additional $41 million worth of stock if he stays on with the company for four years. (Note that the $41 million is current value of the shares, which could go up or down by the time he receives them.)

In addition, the filing reveals just how strapped for cash Tumblr was by the time it sold to Yahoo. Of the $85 million it raised from investors in September 2011, Tumblr had just $16.5 million left. Tumblr was likely feeling pressure to raise more money, and was no doubt having a hard time during the company’s lackluster ad performance. Yahoo’s offer may have come just in time.

Yahoo’s other acquisitions during this period were comparatively modest. The filing shows that the company paid $54 million in total for nine startups, which, based on their announcement dates, we believe include Summly, Astrid, MileWise, GoPollGo, Loki Studios, PlayerScale, GhostBird Software, Rondee and Bignoggins. (We have reached out to Yahoo to confirm.)

Estimates stated that Yahoo paid around $30 million for Summly, and either that figure was too high, or the other eight startups averaged about $3 million apiece.

Image: Andrew Burton/Getty Images

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Twitter is becoming an increasingly important platform for online communication and, yes, conversation. TechCrunch reported that Twitter is receiving 8 million unique visitors per month and about 3 million messages are posted daily.

• Twitter As A Learning Tool

Over 3 million messages are posted everyday. Are you mentioned in any of them? What about your company? This might be a good time to find out. Twitter provides a search engine that allows you plug-in company names, brand names, topics and even personal names. How is your buzz level? Are there any negative comments out there? If I were you, I’d use the search engine to check in a regular basis.

• Use Twitter as a Media Outlet

You can use Twitter to post news or updates about your company or products. However, please don’t do this before you become familiar with the format and etiquette of Twitter. The best way to do this is to post a link to the full content of the news or update. Think of what’s valuable to your consumers and let them hear about it first on Twitter. You’ll be amazed how your following will grow.

• A Promotional Palace

It’s not uncommon for companies to post promotions, sales, or specials on Twitter. An example would be Dell, they do it well. It’s important to remember that Twitter is about conversation and breaking news, so be sure if you are posting promotional information that you make it conversational and personal. If I want an ad, I’ll turn on TV.

• Create Character in Your Brand

Twitter is a fantastic tool in giving your brand a voice and a personality. Being successful in Twittering, you will have to put forth your personality and a unique style. That’s what makes the difference and can increase your Twitter following and make it a successful marketing tool for you.

• Customer Service and Chit Chat

As you begin to use Twitter you will notice that it’s all about conversation. It’s about talking to your prospects and consumers, interacting with them. If you are not going to do this, don’t use Twitter as a marketing tool, it simply won’t work. Make friends, be a friend and reply. Show your followers that you want to engage and be involved with them – this provides optimal customer service and that you are, in fact, personable.

The post Twitter: A Valuable Marketing Tool? Why Twitter Marketing ? appeared first on Digitrock.

“Does Mark [Zuckerberg] know that?” Karp’s interviewer, GigaOM senior writer Mathew Ingram, asked.

“He does. I’ve made sure he does,” said Karp.

The reason for the longer session time is not that Tumblr is “so much better,” Karp explained. “It’s very different behavior. People come here for same reason they turn their TV on when they come home at the end of the day … It’s something to do before checking your email, it’s a chance to go and see stuff you enjoy, let’s you escape from the real world. And that media experience is one that ends up consuming a fair bit more time than just the amount of time you spend checking your friends updates on Facebook or Twitter or Foursquare.”

Tumblr users may spend more time on Tumblr than Facebook users do in a single visit, but that doesn’t mean people are spending more time collectively on Tumblr, of course. According to a 2012 study, people spent an average of 6.75 hours per month on Facebook, compared to 1.5 hours on Tumblr.

Karp dropped a few other stats during the talk, noting that 90 million posts are published on Tumblr each day from 100 million blogs. Collectively, users spend “in the order of tens of billions of minutes” per month on Tumblr, he added.

The trick now, Karp said, is to help users discover the posts they love — something that will use the aid of both algorithms and human curators. What it won’t include is Storyboard, Tumblr’s now-defunct editorial operation. He explained that Tumblr doesn’t want to decide what great content is, or to have certain communities feel ignored when its editorial team doesn’t chronicle its activities. “It’s not a knock at the team at all,” Karp said. “Like many kind of creative ambitions, some work, some don’t, this one didn’t work the way we intended for it to work.”

You can watch the full interview below:

Image courtesy of paidContent and Livestream

The post Users Stay Longer on Tumblr Than Facebook, Says David Karp appeared first on Digitrock.

“Does Mark [Zuckerberg] know that?” Karp’s interviewer, GigaOM senior writer Mathew Ingram, asked.

“He does. I’ve made sure he does,” said Karp.

The reason for the longer session time is not that Tumblr is “so much better,” Karp explained. “It’s very different behavior. People come here for same reason they turn their TV on when they come home at the end of the day … It’s something to do before checking your email, it’s a chance to go and see stuff you enjoy, let’s you escape from the real world. And that media experience is one that ends up consuming a fair bit more time than just the amount of time you spend checking your friends updates on Facebook or Twitter or Foursquare.”

Tumblr users may spend more time on Tumblr than Facebook users do in a single visit, but that doesn’t mean people are spending more time collectively on Tumblr, of course. According to a 2012 study, people spent an average of 6.75 hours per month on Facebook, compared to 1.5 hours on Tumblr.

Karp dropped a few other stats during the talk, noting that 90 million posts are published on Tumblr each day from 100 million blogs. Collectively, users spend “in the order of tens of billions of minutes” per month on Tumblr, he added.

The trick now, Karp said, is to help users discover the posts they love — something that will use the aid of both algorithms and human curators. What it won’t include is Storyboard, Tumblr’s now-defunct editorial operation. He explained that Tumblr doesn’t want to decide what great content is, or to have certain communities feel ignored when its editorial team doesn’t chronicle its activities. “It’s not a knock at the team at all,” Karp said. “Like many kind of creative ambitions, some work, some don’t, this one didn’t work the way we intended for it to work.”

You can watch the full interview below:

Image courtesy of paidContent and Livestream

The post Users Stay Longer on Tumblr Than Facebook, Says David Karp appeared first on Digitrock.