For some extroverts who don’t enjoy writing, it can be almost painful to sit still and write out your ideas. The longer you sit, alone in your office, the more energy is drained from you.
Engaging in a conversation is much more appealing, where you can talk about your ideas and what excites you about them. Some extroverts funnel their energy into creating video and audio recordings. But if you rely on recordings for all of your content, you will miss making a connection with certain members of your audience.
Some of your readers and prospective clients can only learn from what they see and read – for them, audio or video simply aren’t enough.
Ghost blogging is an attractive solution, and a smart, efficient way for extroverts to use the strategy of content marketing. I’ve been ghostwriting since 2005, taking my client’s voice, ideas and personality and putting them to paper. My clients are very involved in the writing process (without having to do any actual writing), and we communicate back and forth until we’ve got it right.
Apparently this kind of collaborative approach isn’t what people first think of when they hear the term ghost blogging. In “5 Alternatives to Ghost Blogging,” Tax Anderson suggests ethical ways that executives and others in the corporate world can get help with their blogging (some of these practices are remarkably similar to exactly what I do as a ghostwriter).
I definitely understand when people express concerns that ghost blogging is ineffective or unethical. How can a blog effectively build trusting, long-term relationships with prospective clients unless the posts are written directly by the person providing the service?
And isn’t it unethical for posts to be “signed” by a business owner, when that person had no direct involvement in the writing process?
Because it’s so easy to publish content to a blog, I think we sometimes forget that blogs are a form of a social media, meant to be a conversation. Even when you hire a ghostwriter to help create your blog posts or social media updates (conversation starters) (hey, we do all that!), I believe you should still respond personally to any (and all) comments and social media responses.
Mark Schaefer agrees, and thinks it’s ridiculous to argue about ghost blogging (thanks to Rebecca Leaman who posted this link via Twitter). He offers his own guidelines for corporate ghost blogging, which encourage the author to be involved in the writing process, including any follow-up conversations.
If you’re interested in reading more about this still ongoing debate, Laura Spencer sums up and compiles more links in her post on Everything PR.
Stay tuned for my next post, when I’ll answer the question: Blogging: Passive marketing, or an introvert’s dream come true?