Essential questions before you ghost-write your client’s blog

Guidelines for deciding, and for proceeding if you take the plunge

Let’s do the long answer first. If you insist on having your PR team write some of your company blog posts, proceed with caution. Give ample thought to:

Questions you can ask yourself while making decisions:

(1) Is the content company-created, and is the PR team merely re-purposing it for social media digestibility?

If so, fine. Go for it. But avoid packaging overly canned material in a business-neutral voice. If you must include posts like this, consider interspersing it with more personal and authentic pieces by individuals. Otherwise, your audience is likely to tune out, justifiably so.

(2) What are the audience’s expectations?

Consider the degree of skepticism and ethical rigidity of a particular audience. What does the audience value most highly? How will they use the information? Are they likely to be forgiving of sterile business content as long as it includes a tip or resource they can use? Are they expecting a CEO blog with business acumen or an app developer blog with technical depth? If you walk a safe middle line, you may turn off the very people you hope to influence.

(3) Is the time and money worth it if the blog isn’t influential?