Find the original post by Ed Heil at Blogging for Your Clients versus Blogging AS Your Clients.
A bit belated, but welcome back to blogging. Thanks for answering my question, although I wish you'd sent it to me so I could have read this. It's a nice post and I agree whole-heartedly, transparency is important. Letting people know who is writing the blog though is more then just about transparency it is about connecting the community. That's why it's nice that blogs have sub-headers with the author, date and other information that gives content relational data. Let's face it once something is on the web some form of it may live on forever, even if that means in some random Google cache screen.
To answer Bilal Jaffery's question:
Lot's of blogs have co-authors, guest bloggers and in-house staff that contribute to the overall content. Each blog may have it's own rules and ways to annotate information. Some blogs will allow a certain number of words at the beginning or end of the blog to talk about the guest author. Some blogs have a submit form for articles that link to a blogger profile. There are lots of examples of multiple people writing for one place, these are like e-zines. Mashable, Technorati, Top Rank (Lee Oden's company), The Buzz Bin, and drgmpls.com all have examples of multiple authors under one roof.
Where I think ghost-blogging comes into play and is okay, which I think is where the aforementioned question from me above comes into play, is from more of an editorial or reporter's perspective.
What if it's a very small company and no one likes to write or has a desire to, but they still have a lot of great information they want to share? Just because they are bad at spelling or writing out the information doesn't mean that it's not written in their voice and is still there content. The information could be written from a third person voice and you can note the person writing it, so that all the posts sound like a novel or interview of the company.
Another option is to interview them or have them tell you the information, record it and then organize it for them in writing. Give the company the option to revise and then touch it up.
A third option (and often best) is to have the company write there own posts and then help them by moderating. In the third instance you can not only fix errors, but teach the man to fish. Teach your client how to optimize their own content for SEO, give them copy blogging tips, remind them that photos and photo credits are important, in the long run guiding them to be more independent and successful so that you can focus on the next step of the strategy.
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A bit belated, but welcome back to blogging. Thanks for answering my question, although I wish you'd sent it to me so I could have read this. It's a nice post and I agree whole-heartedly, transparency is important. Letting people know who is writing the blog though is more then just about transparency it is about connecting the community. That's why it's nice that blogs have sub-headers with the author, date and other information that gives content relational data. Let's face it once something is on the web some form of it may live on forever, even if that means in some random Google cache screen.
To answer Bilal Jaffery's question:
Lot's of blogs have co-authors, guest bloggers and in-house staff that contribute to the overall content. Each blog may have it's own rules and ways to annotate information. Some blogs will allow a certain number of words at the beginning or end of the blog to talk about the guest author. Some blogs have a submit form for articles that link to a blogger profile. There are lots of examples of multiple people writing for one place, these are like e-zines. Mashable, Technorati, Top Rank (Lee Oden's company), The Buzz Bin, and drgmpls.com all have examples of multiple authors under one roof.
Where I think ghost-blogging comes into play and is okay, which I think is where the aforementioned question from me above comes into play, is from more of an editorial or reporter's perspective.
What if it's a very small company and no one likes to write or has a desire to, but they still have a lot of great information they want to share? Just because they are bad at spelling or writing out the information doesn't mean that it's not written in their voice and is still there content. The information could be written from a third person voice and you can note the person writing it, so that all the posts sound like a novel or interview of the company.
Another option is to interview them or have them tell you the information, record it and then organize it for them in writing. Give the company the option to revise and then touch it up.
A third option (and often best) is to have the company write there own posts and then help them by moderating. In the third instance you can not only fix errors, but teach the man to fish. Teach your client how to optimize their own content for SEO, give them copy blogging tips, remind them that photos and photo credits are important, in the long run guiding them to be more independent and successful so that you can focus on the next step of the strategy.
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