Should Companies Have “Ghost” Blogs?
Recently, I was contacted by a media company representative. She was looking for someone for a paid blogging opportunity. A client of theirs wanted to hire someone to write blog posts every month about the legal services industry. The posts would appear under their byline however, and I would simply be paid for the work and my expertise.
Wait a minute….
So there’s a legal services company out there, either currently running a blog, or looking to start a blog, that can’t create their own posts?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t the point of creating a blog and sharing free content be to show your own staff’s expertise and provide useful guidance to your customers? If so, why are you hiring a third party to write it? I can think of three reasons off the top of my head:
- You don’t actually have anyone on your staff with the proper expertise
- You have the expertise, but no one who can actually communicate that with potential customers
- Your staff doesn’t have time to be involved in learning and sharing knowledge with customers
None of those sound like a place I want to do business with.
As it turns out, I do not know which company this media rep was representing, so I can’t steer clear of them, so I’m just going to throw this out to the whole industry. Just say no. By all means use blogging and social media, but use them to tell your story, show off you own talents and knowledge, and let potential customers see the best you have to offer. Don’t use outside experts to generate buzz that you can’t back up. If I ever find out, you can be sure I will not do business with you.
Have you had offers to ghost write blog posts for a services company? How would you feel about their authenticity if you found out they didn’t write their own content?
Image by Carney Lentz 
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