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The Continuing Ethical Debate About Ghost-Written Blogs

ghostI 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

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Blogging, Ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • This is a very interesting topic that concerns us all who work in ORM and Social Media campaigns, etc.

    I absolutely respect the stance taken by Nancy and I do fully agree that writing on behalf of someone else can be deceptive. However, I do believe there is a middle way. When the prospect supplies information and asks you to write about specific topics with specific information, I don't believe our work is necessarily unethical.

    I do have friends in the UK who are professional ghost writers for VIPs, high-flying executives and the like and what they do is fundamentally shape in writing the biographical (or otherwise) information provided by the prospect. In the same vein, we sometimes write for clients who lack the communication skills to do it for themselves (often happens in small-to-mid industrial companies) but firmly based on the information THEY supply. Needless to say we train them in the skills necessary to eventually take the reins and fully run their own blogs, news releases, etc in the spirit of the Web 2.0

    Of course Nancy is referring to something else here. If I understand her point correctly, she is talking about providing a full editorial service and running the client's communication and social media interactions. And yes, that is hardly the spirit of the Social Media, which I agree are all about transparency, etc. There is definitely a very fine line we are treading on here, and at the very least we must make very clear to clients that we can provide temporary help and assistance in certain tasks and that eventually they will need to take full responsibility and accountability.

    Thanks Nancy for discussing this topic in such an open and frank manner.
  • Your comments, as always, are really inciteful and I thank you for them. I agree, nothing is ever black and white, but I think the key to anything is transparency. 'Ghost-writing' is not in itself unethical - it is when that writing is passed off as someone else without any clear indication given.

    In a situation where we would provide editorial and/or copywriting assistance, my inclination nowadays would be to state in the 'About' page something along the lines of:

    "I receive editorial and copywriting assistance on this blog, as I find it difficult to be here all the time. But all writing is approved by me and I will endeavour to write myself and respond to comments when I can"

    At least that way, the reader knows that it may not be the executive themselves speaking all the time, but that he or she is fully cognisant of everything being written. It is the deception which is unethical, not the practice in my opinion.
  • I agree with you, that maybe the best way forward. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
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