I read with interest this morning an article from Dave Fleet about the Ethics of Ghost-Writing in Social Media. I find this topic of particular interest because it deals with an issue that we have had to face within our company on a number of occasions. Once we have got past the initial resistance to social media engagement and the prospect agrees that it would help their reputation to get involved, more often than not we get the inevitable question...
"We don't have the manpower though - can you write our blog for us?".
I am going to make an admission here. When we first started out, my response to that was ususally 'yes'. We had access to good copywriters and my thought at the time was that at least the company was getting involved - it was a start (and anyone who has tried to get a resistant company to start will know what a coup that was). However, over time, my beliefs have swung around the other way, and I cringe at the fact that I was advocating what was, essentially, unethical behaviour.
Leaving aside the issues that arose out of attempting to write blogs for clients (i.e. no communication from them, delayed sign-off, lack of feedback or topic suggestions etc.) it dawned on all of us pretty quickly that all we were doing was producing PR. Yes, there is a cross-over between PR and social media, but social media is not PR and in order to build a reputation and form strong relationships with customers and clients, delivering them professionally written PR material wasn't the way to go.
Since then, I have stood by the same principles that Dave Fleet discusses. The crux of good social media interaction is transparency and authenticity. I have said that so many times in this blog and elsewhere that I often sound like a broken record. Getting a blog written for you breaks those rules of transparency and authenticity and is essentially deceptive. I hope you accept my honesty in my past admission (goes to show that I can be very wrong sometimes) as I wouldn't advocate it now.
I know that many companies lack the time and resources to write a blog - particularly members of the Executive team. That shouldn't be a barrier to them having a blog - what it should mean is that their 'company' blog should quite clearly state who it is written by and if that is on behalf of the company (with full approval) then that should be stated to. In other words, yes, it is OK for someone else to write your blog for you as long as the reader knows that and knows the capacity they write in.
I know we will still get asked. But I also know now where we as a company stand on the issue.
Img: Philippe Sokazo