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Bloggy Question 84: Social Networking and Reputation — What Should Doostang Do?

June 29, 2008 by Liz Leave a Comment

Reputation Management

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .

It’s a real-life question tonight. . . .

In March, I wrote a post in response to a bad experience at an “elite” social networking site. I’ll wait while you check it out. . . .

3 Reasons I’m Sorry I Joined Doostang . . .

In a day or so, two things happened.

  1. My post made the first page of Google for the keyword doostang.
  2. My LinkedIn account showed that someone from Doostang had visited my profile. No one attempted to contact me.

Mid-May that post started to draw 5% to 10% of my daily search traffic. As you can see by the comments there, it can’t be helping Doostang’s elite self-defined profile as social network for top tier talent.

This week, I saw traffic from The New York Times article by Andrew Ross Sorkin, called Social Networking on Wall Street. The comments were less than favorable. Someone named John had left a link to my original article there.

I’ll wait while you take a look.

Doostang just launched a new look targeted at college elite.

If Doostang asked for your advice, what would you tell them to do?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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Filed Under: Bloggy Questions, Successful Blog Tagged With: Bloggy-Question, Doostang, reputation management, social-networking, The New York Times

Comments

  1. Mark Salinas says

    June 29, 2008 at 7:23 PM

    Very good…I love the site!

    Reply
  2. ME Liz Strauss says

    June 29, 2008 at 7:29 PM

    Mark,
    I’m not sure I know what you mean.

    Reply
  3. Aruni says

    June 29, 2008 at 7:31 PM

    I would tell them to reach out to you and ask for your help in addressing the issues you faced. Considering that someone saw fit to leave your post in the comment section of the NYT means they should pay attention!

    Who knows what they are thinking, however. Are they overwhelmed? Are they dismissing you and others with negative feedback? Are they deer in the headlight? Are they practicing internal finger pointing?

    Social networks still have a long road ahead to prove themselves from a business model perspective. Not a great idea for those trying to compete to ignore feedback.

    Reply
  4. ME Liz Strauss says

    June 29, 2008 at 7:34 PM

    Hi Aruni!
    It’s a good manager that looks for more information before she acts — as you just did. When I looked further I found complaints going back to 2005.

    Reply
  5. JoLynn Braley says

    June 29, 2008 at 7:37 PM

    Hi Liz, I’d tell them to inject their operation with some integrity and either follow through on what they promise (how can No One get approved??) or be upfront about what they’re doing – collecting email addresses!

    Is it likely they would do the latter? No way, but it sounds like they’re already generating a ton of word of mouth and I can’t see how they will be around that long, do you?

    BTW, did you end up getting on spam lists or did any of your friends? Have you gotten any other email from them?

    Reply
  6. ME Liz Strauss says

    June 29, 2008 at 7:48 PM

    Hi JoLynn!
    I’m not sure whether they’re an additional cause of my spam. I get thousands a day. (Thanks Gmail for the incredible filters!!)

    As far as the rest goes, all of my friends seem to have had a similar situation to me . . . I didn’t invite many more than I really needed to, but even so.

    I’ve been wondering about how since they seem to offer unlimited invitations through the back door whether they are liable for some sort of discrimination . . .

    Reply
  7. JoLynn Braley says

    June 29, 2008 at 8:39 PM

    Hi Liz,

    Very interesting, you mean because they require that you submit 20 or so emails of your friends and those friends don’t have to go through any prequalifying? Yeah, the whole thing just sounds super fishy.

    Something you could do to protect yourself in the future before signing up for something (if you’re not sure about it) is to use sneakemail – it routes to your real email address without giving it away and if what you joined ends up being a scam (like this sounds to be), then you just delete that email through sneakemail while not disturbing your real email address.

    This would help you cut down on spam. Hope that helps, just wanted to pass it along. 🙂

    Reply
  8. ME Liz Strauss says

    June 29, 2008 at 8:53 PM

    Hi JoLynn!
    Great tip about sneakemail. Lots of folks use particular addresses keyed to a site to make sure that know where the spam is coming from.

    I have a friend who misspells her name in different ways depending on what she signs up for.

    Reply

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