Ghost blogging means that someone else writes your blog for you. It's kind of like ghostwriting where you hire someone to help you on a writing project, but that person isn’t going to get credit for any of the work, just a paycheck.
Often in business, marketing and PR writers will spend an entire career working in obscurity with no byline or any mention at all of their contributions, while the business they work for claims authorship. Technical writers, too, work on writing very large amounts of documentation and never get public acknowledgement. No one seems to question the ethics of those practices. So why couldn't the CEO of the same company that produces huge amounts of marketing and technical writing use an un-credited writing source for the corporate blog?
Well, a blog is something different. It is -- or at least is perceived as being -- more personal. A blog is a component of social networking, which is based on a kind of openness and honesty. So would it be ethical for a blogger to hire a ghostwriter to write a blog and the ghost blogger go un-credited?
The blogging community is mixed on its feelings toward ghost blogging. Many believe that a blogger should type every word of their blog themselves, and that if they can't for whatever reason, they shouldn't post their ideas in a blog format. Personally, I think it depends on to what degree the ghost blogger contributes and how the blogger attributes the ghost blogger’s work. I believe blogging should be a way for everyone to convey their ideas, not just people who are comfortable with the writing process. There are many, many people out there with great ideas to share, but either don’t have the time or don’t have the writing skills to get their ideas across.
For example, let's say that Heather Green is CEO of OmniPrecient Software, a company that builds and sells software that configures and manages virtual computer systems. Heather is an expert on virtual computer systems and has some interesting views on best practices for managing them. But because she spends the bulk of her time providing vision and direction to her executive staff, she doesn't have time to do a lot of hands-on business activities. Hers is a job of delegation. The better she delegates, the more successful she and the company are. Does it make sense for Heather to spend a lot of hands-on time (sometimes several hours a week) writing her own blog just to convey her opinions? Maybe not.
One solution might be to hire a professional writer to do some research on virtual computer systems management and then to write up 1000 words a week on the subject and post them on the company web site with Heather's byline. That solution would be at one extreme of ghost blogging and would definitely be a big ethical no-no. In this scenario, Heather would be passing off someone else's work as completely her own. Not only is that approach not ethical, it might even be illegal, depending on how the source material was attributed.
So is there a legal and ethical way to use a ghost blogger? There is, and it only requires a little more effort from Heather and her team. And here's how it works.
Either Heather or someone she has delegated the task to can outline a topic for a blog. A ghost blogger could then research the topic just as before, but this time would create a draft of just the research material, with no introductory or conclusive text. Heather could then review the draft document, write an introduction and a conclusion that would include her insight on the topic. When the blog is posted, the blog would contain Heather's byline and a mention that additional materials were provided by members of the OmniPrecient staff.
Heather would get credit for her expertise, and by being honest about the contributions of others she avoids any ethical issues. The added bonus is that a professional writer will know how to document the sources for Heather's blog, so she won't have to deal with the repercussions of using other people's work as source material.
If you are considering hiring a ghost blogger, I strongly suggest you consider the legal and ethical implications. But if the model I've described here makes sense for your blog, hiring a ghost blogger might be a very valuable way of getting your voice heard without having to spend all your time on many of the difficult writing details.
As always, I value your comments ...
Ric Fox,
AntiTechWriter
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