PerfectMarket

Huffington Post Blazes a Trail

 

There is no denying Huffington Post's substantial growth over the past few years.

Where once they were deemed a political blog, today they strive to be "America's Internet Newspaper." The site is well on its way with 22 verticals and a readership and revenue which some have projected to eclipse the New York Times by 2014.

They've got to be doing something right.

While its been shown (by Perfect Market's own Steve Walker) that brands with an offline presence have the ability to "generate more than 50 times more revenue than websites that do not have this head start," Huffington Post has been able to establish a powerful online brand in less than a decade.

A key advantage: Huffington Post does not shoulder the onus of two key newspaper burdens: the cost of printing and distributing their print editions and employing full-time, paid journalism pros. Huffington Post does have a team of editors and writers, but it is also well known for its policy of unpaid contributors. The site is notorious for copying and linking to original news crafted by journalists from established news organizations.

Thus, while a comparison between Huffington Post and mainstream media outlets will never be entirely fair because of these two essential differences, traditonal publishers would do well to emulate many of the measures being implemented by Huffington Post.

Abby Klaasen of Ad Age sat down with Greg Coleman, president and chief revenue officer of Huffington Post who shared some insights into why and how the site has seen such unprecedented growth.

One aspect Coleman stressed that is near and dear to Perfect Market's heart is content management.

"The biggest surprise is [the role of] technology and openness in enabling us to grow so fast. ...," Coleman observed. :It's the whole content management system that our team has that enables editors to do their own search engine optimization and [content] sharing right at their desks and to get updates on how well their stories are doing every fifteen minutes."

Huffington Post has implemented a system which gives their editors the ability to create content which will thrive in the search and social economy. What's missing is the ability for those editors to also know the monetary value of their stories. Knowledge is power!

Huffington Post is also well know for their emphasis on social. It began with an emphasis on commentary on their content and has expanded to full-fledged social media marketing, a capability they stress to marketers. Coleman told Ad Age, "First and foremost, we are positioning ourselves as a social-media company, meaning that all of the great and powerful social marketing tools that have made the Huffington Post grow right now to 24 million unique visitors, we can now use those tools to help our marketers beam their messages throughout the internet, across the galaxy, the internet, and the world."

Huffington Post has succeeded thanks in part to their stellar combination of editorial content and innovative thinking in both the social and technological realms. The company is not afraid to experiment and try new methods for positioning and sharing their content.

A prime example: Huffington Post partnered with GE on a campaign called "healthymagination." Beyond simply slapping ads on their relevant content, Huffington Post employed creative solutions to making the campaign viral.

"We allowed them to run advertising on anything tagged "wellness" across our site -- they were looking for positive health information," Coleman said. "We then created a special share bar for GE, and any time you tweeted that article or retweeted that article or shared it, the ad module would go with it...When you retweeted it, [you'd get] the hashtag "GE healthymagination."

It's this kind of creative thinking that mainstream publishers need to make part of their everyday thinking when it comes to content management and advertising. Right now, the Huffington Post is blazing a new trail for online publishing. Will newspapers follow their innovative example or be left behind?

— Lee Glandorf

Follow Lee on Twitter: @LeeGlandorf
 

Tags: search, newspapers, journalism, twitter, analytics, journalists, lee glandorf, new york times, social media, perfect market, mainstream media, search engine optimization, ad age, huffington post,