I was recently reading a post by Jill Whalen on deceptive practices in link building and she made a lot of great points; so much that I found myself thinking about my own link building tactics.

• Where is the line when we’re pitching sites on behalf of clients?
• Are we really being deceptive when we use personae?
• What about if we create full family trees for the personae we create?

At Outspoken Media, our team has given a lot of thought to how we use personae and where the line is when we’re pitching clients. Though we don’t create fake relatives, we do use persona as part of our link building efforts. Below are some of the approaches available for marketers, as well as the benefits and risks associated with each.

First, Why Use A Persona At All?

Many of us who work in client services are bound by heavy NDAs, which take away the ability for us to pitch websites as our true selves – as marketing/consulting companies. If we did, it would “out” our clients to the bloggers and website owners that we’re reaching out to. Not every business wants to broadcast to their competitors that they’ve hired an SEO or ORM company to assist them. In these cases, discretion is key. And that’s where personae come into play. It allows us to gain exposure for the client, without infringing on their privacy.

But there are varying degrees of personae and the key is finding the right method for your link building goals and making sure both you and the client are comfortable with what’s taking place.

Type of Personae

1. The Client

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In this scenario, the link builder is effectively reaching out to other sites in the client’s name. Here the client has no qualms about reaching out for links, but doesn’t have the time (or interest) in doing it themselves. So they hire an SEO company to help them. It’s less creating a persona and more simply taking on the role of “ghostwriter”.

Ghostwriting can work well, but only if the company hired becomes familiar with the brand and is able to speak intelligently in the brand’s voice. It does not work when there are many people with different voices doing the ghostwriting. In fact, if you do this, Lisa might show up and slap you.

[There’s no “might” about it. I will. – Lisa]

When to Use This Strategy

Marketers should take advantage of this strategy when your client has a strong reputation, strong community and is well-networked in their industry. Make sure that the client is aware of what you’re doing, comfortable with it and is highly involved. A client who is responsive to your questions and open about their practices is ideal for this scenario since communication is integral through this link building strategy.

How to Start

Start strategizing with your client by gaining comprehensive and intimate knowledge of their networks, business, and practices. Once your objectives are clear and you’ve discussed goals, detail how their e-mail address and reputation will be used. Here at Outspoken Media, we not only get approval from the client on our objectives, but also sign an E-mail Usage Agreement that dictates how, where and when we will, and won’t, use their account.

How to Manage

Since you’re using a real person’s reputation and e-mail, we’d recommend letting them know whom you are pitching before you send pitches out. We’ve sent clients a pitch list for approval to ensure that we catch any relationships that already exist with those on the list. It would be embarrassing and potentially damaging for your client if an already established contact or friend gets sent an introduction e-mail.

In order to ensure you’re capturing the correct voice send them a few sample pitches so they may edit to match their own voice. Allow them to list a few tips on their communication style to make your representation of their voice more authentic.

Benefits:

• Taking advantage of the client’s network and helping expand it
• Using a real person’s identity and reputation to build trust and authenticity
• Being able to put a name with a face when necessary

Risks:

• Inaccurately representing the client to those that know better
• Inconsistent tone of voice
• Bloggers may ask that you pay for sponsored articles or links

2. Company Representative

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A company representative is a persona created within the client’s company that you use for link building purposes. This is less transparent than using a real person within the company, but still offers truthfulness from a link building perspective since you’re obtaining links for the client by using their own brand.

When to Use This Strategy

Employ this strategy when your client isn’t comfortable with you using their personal accounts or name, but where there is still a strong network and brand that you can take advantage of. Also, if they are looking to build up their brand and it’s presence, building links from a branded account will help you expand their network and achieve that goal.

How to Start

Have your client set up an e-mail account as a persona (NedFlanders@companyname.com) or as a generic account (info@companyname.com). Make sure you have a conversation with the client beforehand about how the account will be used to prevent any confusion down the line. You don’t need as much working knowledge of the company’s practices as you would if you were representing a specific person, but setting up goals for this account with the client will help communicate its purpose. That E-mail Usage Agreement mentioned earlier should also be used here, as well.

How to Manage

Even though you’re using a company e-mail address and the people you’re pitching are aware of the brand they’re building a link to, this is still not a real person. Refrain from making up any credentials and highlight as little personal information as possible in case your client has multiple people using this account over its lifetime. It’s one thing to create a persona that can be used to represent the company, but it’s a much sketchier thing to create an entire family for that “person”.

Benefits:

• Minimal amount of management and involvement for the client
• Builds up brand awareness and utilizes the brand’s already-established network
• Client can still use the account should you part ways or they decide to go in-house.

Risks:

• Inaccurately representing the company and its voice
• Bloggers may require that you pay for sponsored articles or links
• Difficulty securing links without using personal information or details

3. Made Up Person

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This is where it gets hairy…

This persona is a completely fictional person with no company association who exists only to create content with strategically placed backlinks. At Outspoken Media we employ some pretty strict guidelines for how to manage these accounts, not just to protect our clients but also to make the content we send out as useful for bloggers as possible. The objective may not be as transparent with this tactic, but it produces results. In most cases we find that bloggers are ok with giving a couple backlinks in return for a quality piece of content. The key word here is “quality”.

When to Use This Strategy

Completely fictional personae are ideal when you’re working with a client who has a struggling brand and reputation, and where it will be difficult to get backlinks for them with a branded account.

An integral part of using this strategy is dedicating the time to content creation. In this case, it’s the quality content and strategic pitching that will get you the links, not the brand. Let’s be clear about that – you are providing value to both the brand (they get the link) and the site (they get free quality content), and are simply using an alias to do that.

As an example, I recently did some pitching for a client with a struggling reputation. I pitched both from a branded account and an unbranded account and received very different results. Over the short span of three days, I received zero positive responses from the pitches I sent through the branded account, and had a 62% positive response rate from the unbranded account. That’s the power of made up persona.

How to Manage

Your client must be aware and comfortable with youbuilding links using this method. The challenge with this kind approach is it forces you to obtain links while giving minimal personal details and covering any traces you may leave. One thing we stress is keeping the pitches as clean and simple as possible. If you go into many fictional personal details you’re not only being more deceptive, but also creating a greater responsibility to remember these details. If for some reason you falter in doing so, the easier it is for a blogger to call you out on it.

Tips to keep these accounts secure:

• Be cautious of author information on the documents you’re sending. Most times, word processing software will automatically include it.
• Be aware of the e-mail client you’re using and if your IP address is attached to it. The IP address will give away your location if someone looks it up.
• Don’t have signatures enabled. If you use a signature management add-on or have signatures enabled there is a greater chance for a discrepancy in the name you’re trying to use.
• Don’t use stock photos as headshots. There’s a handy reverse image search engine out there called TinEye. This site allows you to upload a photo and find where on the web it’s being used.

Benefits:

• No management requirements from the client
• Allows you to build links without bloggers asking for sponsored posts or links
• Can create many different kinds of content and pitch any kind of website

Risks:

• Someone figuring out what client you’re working for and announcing it
• Leaving traces and being called out

4. Company Mascot

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When to Use This Strategy

When you or your client aren’t comfortable using any of the other above personae.
A character is an animated entity with a name and personality, just like a baseball team’s mascot. There’s no denying the success of some big brand characters like Ronald McDonald and Tony the Tiger.

How to Manage

Company characters tend to have amped up personalities and encompass qualities the brand would like to emulate. Talk with your client about what characteristics you want their representative to have and create a one-sheet about them. This way, anyone assuming the personality will know what their voice is and how to portray them. Make sure that the character is still a person, although animated and anonymous it makes it easier for people to connect with during the link building process.

Benefits:

• Simple way to assume a personality that multiple people can step into and manage over time
• Can be tailored to fit any voice the client chooses and gives them that control
• Complete transparency since everyone knows it’s made up

Risks:

• Difficulties pitching to those who may want to speak to someone real

As much as many of us would like to pretend we don’t need devices like personae to help scout links and build awareness to sites, in most cases we do. What are your thoughts on the implications of personae? Do you use them? Have you used them?

Either way, it’s dangerous.

I didn’t really want to talk about Weinergate. It’s not only gross, but it pains me to think about how someone in public office can be so blind to the scope of social media and the Internet. But, looking at my own social media feeds I realized that former U.S. Representative Weiner is not alone. Many of us are blind. Too many of us, and as we’ve learned, being too, um, forthcoming online can often cost your job if you’re not careful.

Avoiding Mistakes

Weinergate started when Rep. Weiner decided to use Facebook and Twitter to solicit online relationships with women concealed from the knowledge of his wife. This is a stellar plan to begin with, but to top it all off, Weiner sent explicit texts and pictures to his online ladyfriends using a government-funded cell phone. Doh.

And then the unthinkable happened: he accidentally tweeted. I know, you’re shocked, right? That never happens. Meaning to send a picture of his junk to an online mistress via Direct Message on Twitter, he accidentally tweeted it to his public timeline. Although promptly deleted, it was still something that quite a few people noticed, and of course saved.

What can you learn from his congressional Weinergate?

Lesson #1: The Internet is Forever

To combat a potential online reputation management issue, we all must accept that the Internet is no longer a “second life”. People act like it’s is a shield, making them brazen and unusually open. But in reality, what you do on the Internet is more likely to stick with you in the future for a lot longer than it would in “real life.” Why? Because the Internet is real life…only under a magnifying glass.

Imagine what Anthony Weiner’s Google search results will look like in the next few years. Unless he’s smart enough to hire an online reputation management company, they will still be riddled with articles about this unfortunate incident. Then compare this outcome to that of Bill Clinton’s Lewinsky scandal, which happened before the rise of social media.

It makes me wonder, would Clinton have been acquitted of impeachment if all of his business had been online?

How to Prevent Mistakes

1. Only publish private messages from private accounts.
   This was Weiner’s first and most crucial mistake in avoiding this reputation nightmare. Had he had the foresight to keep public and private social media accounts, he could have avoided the entire thing. If you’re going to commit adultery (which we don’t condone, but for argument’s sake), never do it from a public account that could potentially hurt your business’ reputation or your own.

 

2. Re-read all tweets or status messages posted on public accounts twice before sending them.
   We’ve all seen far too many people manning company accounts who attempt to be clever by posting some politically incorrect joke to gain attention and create conversation. That’s an OK tactic, but only if you’re willing to stick by it. If you’re doing something controversial you might want to look twice at what you’re posting before you do it because backing down is not an option. It makes people angry.

 

3. Don’t participate in shady behavior that would embarrass your mother.
   Alright, I’m under no delusion that this post will stop any shady behavior, but please think about the traces you’re making when you’re doing whatever it is that you must do online. Not sure what traces you’re leaving? Keep reading.

 

Pointing the Finger

After people noticed they saw something they shouldn’t have on Weiner’s Twitter account, it spread like wildfire. Rep. Weiner tried to deny he had anything to do with the picture at all. He even went on to say that someone hacked into his account and posted a random picture of a penis to simply make fun of his name.

Upon further investigation it was found that the tweet was sent from a TweetDeck account that was consistent to most of the other tweets on Weiner’s account. While this didn’t prove anything, it put increased pressure on Rep. Weiner to come clean. And his story started falling apart…

Lesson #2: The Internet Leaves Traces

Computers are far more complex than most people realize, capable of tracing details down to every character you type. It’s no wonder that online reputation consultants are such a needed and growing division of PR. But what traces are you leaving?

1. Your IP address is logged.
   Keep in mind that it’s very easy for someone to look up the IP address of the computer from which you’re sending information. While most preliminary IP lookup Web sites won’t give people details, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. If necessary, authorities have the capability of looking at this information.

 

2. If you give a mouse a cookie…
   Ah, cookies. The delicious advertising evil that flaunts things we want to buy in front of us while we’re trying to work. I hope that isn’t just me. The use of these is so extreme with third party cookies tracking your movements from site to site. But, they’re hidden too, so there are traces most people don’t even think about. Let’s just say I wouldn’t buy anything embarrassing or illegal at work.

 

3. Deleting doesn’t work.
   This goes beyond the fact that anyone can screen-shot anything you do on a public social media site or even blog for that matter. I’ve seen many deleted tweets resurface via this method. You can delete a tweet or blog post/comment from your account, but once it goes public someone will always have a copy. And if you’re using Facebook, privacy be damned, they keep records of all account activity, even what has been deleted. They own that information and will use it as they see fit.

 

Lying to Cover Your A**

As speculation that Rep. Weiner was lying about his illicit behavior increased, women involved in his online rendezvouses started coming out of the woodworks.

What did he do? He emailed his long-term online girlfriend, porn star Ginger Lee and asked her to lie for him and tell the press that they don’t know one another. He then combined it with his arrogance instructing her on PR tactics and telling her to use “y’all” to sound more innocent. He sure knows how to woo a woman.

Lesson #3: The Truth Prevails

Knee deep in lies and with the media hungry for fuel to feed the flame, copies of e-mails and Facebook conversations surfaced (probably for a nice chunk of change) between Rep. Weiner and his many online pursuits.

Take this lesson back to when you were a kid and your mom told you that the truth always comes out. Especially when all of the cheating, lying and coercing is taking place online and your emails are staring you in the face word for word. It’s much harder to have a he said- she said public debate this way.

1. Be accountable.
2. Be polite.
3. Don’t write anything you’d be embarrassed for the public to see.

The People Will Rally

Due to the cover-ups and busted lies, more investigations were prompted about Rep. Weiner’s activities. One such investigation was his potential online solicitation and involvement with a 17-year-old girl. *sigh*

Fellow politicians began rallying for his resignation, and while the President wasn’t one, Obama did offer his opinion that if it were him, he would resign. Game over. Once your colleagues and the general public rally against you it’s a lost cause.

Three days after Obama’s interview, Anthony Weiner resigned from Congress and issued a public apology.

Lesson #4: Some Things You Can’t Combat

Escalations were what really made the situation what it was, a bloodbath. If you remember lesson #3 that truth prevails, the more information that comes to light, more attention will be thrown at the situation you’re trying to bury. It’s best to come clean about something completely on your own terms so that the situation doesn’t get worse.

If it gets so big that the President, mainstream media and Internet rally against you, it’s an issue even professional ORM experts or crisis communication agencies may not want to touch. And then you’re really in trouble.