| 5 Lessons Brands Can Learn From Gawker |
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By: Contently |
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 On Monday, Gawker published its last story.
It was the media world’s favorite blog, and its shutdown inspired hundreds of thinkpieces. I wrote my own brief memoriam here. But since I cover content marketing for a living, I couldn’t help but contemplate what lessons brands can learn from the site that we loved to hate yet still visited every day.
The first lesson, of course, is don’t release someone’s sex tape without permission. (I’m looking at you, Denny’s.) Gawker shuttered because then-editor A.J. Daulerio published Hulk Hogan’s sex tape in October 2012. That post resulted in a $140 million verdict against Gawker Media and made its flagship site too risky for a major acquisition, even as Univision scooped up the rest of Gawker Media for $135 million last week.
But there are many other lessons here about building an incredibly powerful brand, inspiring loyalty, nurturing talent, and publishing fearlessly.
I’m not saying that a brand should ever attempt to emulate Gawker. Even at Contently, a tech company that gives my team a great amount of editorial freedom, that would be insane. Gawker was controversial as hell and disgusting to some. Its editors published stories that would make most brand managers nauseous.
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This article was first published by Contently.com. A link to the original can be found at the bottom of the post.
www.contently.com
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