360DigitalInfluence

Egyptian Women Harassed on International Women's Day 2011

Oscar Wilde once famously proclaimed, “One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.”

It goes without saying that at least once, if not several times in our lives, we have all experienced the negative backlash a spiteful rumor or an embarrassing truth can have, but it is often how we handle these imbroglios that truly define our reputations.

In 1997, according to Measures That Matter, The Center for Business Innovation (CBI), and Cap Gemini/Ernst & Young, about 35% of investment decisions were based on factors such as reputation and image.  Today, this percentage is considerably higher with the activity and immediacy of Facebook and Twitter.

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AOL just announced it is paying $315 million to buy the liberal news commentary site The Huffington Post; a move coming not long after forking out $25 million to buy TechCrunch, a Silicon Valley technology news blog.

Founder Arianna Huffington’s decision to fold her ground breaking community-based news site into one of the web’s struggling legacy Internet companies came as a surprise to many, in the same way Michael Arrington’s Big Announcement at TechCrunch Disrupt last year managed to upstage all the start ups at the event.

Why the Huffington Post?  It has been wildly successful due to several factors, including its ability to find stories across the Web, couple them with well-created headlines and ensure a strong audience sees them. It is also popular as a progressive American news website.Yet the main factor that attracted AOL could in fact be the Huffington Post’s community.

In addition to columns by Arianna Huffington and a core group of contributors the site has over 3,000 bloggers. These range from politicians and celebrities to academics and policy experts to Digital Influence’s Kety Esquivel — all of whom contribute in real time, on a wide-range of topics.

In any vibrant community, online or off, people connect with each other because:

1. They can do so easily and confidently
2. They keep coming back because they satisfy certain needs or wants by taking part
3. They feel their contributions are valued and can identify with the wider community group and its goals

All factors which until now, have been prevalent at the Huffington Post during its five-plus years of existence, with over one million comments made on the site each month. However, it is this community management which is exactly where new owner AOL is walking a fine line.

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I came to Ogilvy 360 DI — and social media strategy — via a slightly different route than most of my colleagues. In short, I was a longtime blogger (and journo) who’d become frustrated at how poorly blog outreach was being handled by brands that, under any other circumstance, would’ve been impeccable with their approach. They’d finessed relationships with the press and customers, but when it came to bloggers, they ended up botching it completely (clunky outreach, poor planning, uneven execution) — and as a result, not capitalizing on all that blogs and social media could offer. Ogilvy was the first place I saw that truly got that blogger relationships were not a one-size-fits-all kind of endeavor. I signed on for the job.

Even though I’m now at Ogilvy, I’m still a blogger — my fashion blog, FashionisSpinach.com, has been tapped for a wide number of influencer campaigns for brands like Chanel and Gucci — and I’m still the target for many brands stepping into the social media sphere. Not a day goes by when I’m not completely amazed at how companies try to use clunky PR methods to reach out to bloggers like me.

Here are three of my most frequently seen pitfalls.

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