It’s one of the questions I dread the most, and I always giggle nervously when it gets asked.
“So who else do you write blogs for?”
See, we ‘ghostwrite’ blogs for loads of different industries – just thinking off the top of my head of the blog posts I’ve written today, they’ve been for:
- a women’s coaching website
- a cosmetic surgeon
- a company providing workwear
- a video production company
- a telemarketing company
- a website selling children’s clothes
- a car rental website
- a business networking website
to name but a few.
We take the time to understand their business, we write about their products and services, comment on items in the news, keep their blog up to date and help them to generate visitors and leads.
We even have a special offer on blogging for January.
But I still struggle every time someone asks me to show them the blogs we write for others. Because a part of the blogging service is that as far as anyone knows, it’s YOUR blog, and it’s produced by you, in the same way that a ghostwritten book is often not actually written by the person named as the author.
Now to my mind, there’s nothing wrong with having your blog written by someone else, as long as they understand your business, your service, and the things your potential clients want to read. It saves you time, makes sure your blog is regularly updated and ensures that you get all the good bits of having a blog (readers, comments, good search engine positions etc) and hopefully none of the bad (down time, lack of focus, ages spent thinking up titles etc).
But I can completely understand why our blogging clients don’t want others to know that we’re writing their blog for them, and so I’ll continue to protect their anonymity.
Potential clients can of course read our own blog, but my tone when writing for myself is very informal and often quite blunt, which isn’t always the case for client blogs that I write!
So it’s a conundrum I’ll continue to puzzle over – which is a shame because I do really love doing the blogging side of my job, writing short posts that generate response and comments, pointing towards great services and products or just ‘chewing the fat’ over 300 words or so.
I’d welcome any ideas as to how to get over this hurdle, and also look forward to the ‘why you shouldn’t get someone else to write your blog’ comments I’ll no doubt generate with this post 
photo credit: Stéfan
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Tags: blogger, Blogging, blogs, ghost blogger, ghost blogging, ghost blogs, privacy, question, referrals, testimonials, topics
This is a tough one to answer. We don’t get this precise question, but we do get a number of variants – such as “have you ever developed for a client in industry X before? >> Yes. >> Ah, who? >> We can’t tell you – there is an NDA in place, sorry.”
This applies to several parts of our business, and in some cases, even if a formal NDA isn’t in place, we may deem it inappropriate to name our clients. It’s not because we’re worried about people contacting them asuch, but because it’s upto them to choose if they reveal our involvement or not!
So no real answer from me, I’m afraid, Nikki!
I guess client anonymity is more important than being able to share what you write for other clients blog’s with your prospective clients, and must surely reassure your prospective clients as a result! It’s an odd one, but seems to be a win, win situation which ever way you look at it. In not divulging the information you are putting the seal on your own company’s credibility. Good for you
If a company can’t even be bothered to write their own blog about their own product or service, what does that say about them! Not surprising these clients want anonymity.
Hmm not sure I agree Catman. Many companies outsource the things they’re not great at inhouse. That’s like saying that if a company can’t be bothered to do their own tax return, and hire someone who can do it quicker, easier and in effect cheaper, then they’re rubbish. I pay someone else to fix my car, clean my house, and mow my lawn – all things I could probably do myself if I wanted to. But it’s more cost effective for me to pay someone else to do those things while I get on with earning money by doing my job.
Pretty poor analogy’s if you ask me. Do you think an account hires another account to do his books, or a mechanic pays another mechanic to fix his car – - get my drift. No, they do it because they’re great at it, in the same way a company should be great at blogging about themselves! If a company can’t be great at writing about it’s own products/services then there is something seriously wrong wouldn’t you say.
A company blog should imo be written by someone who is truly knowledgeable, enthusiastic and passionate about the subject and not a paid researcher who happens to write well. Anything less than, at least if you ask me (and probably customers) is a dubious way to do business. This is especially true when customers are allowed to reply to blog articles, as they do so in good faith believing they are talking to the company.
Anyway on to something else if I may, I’d like kindly ask you to stop the underhand practice of joining and posting on other peoples fb fan pages with false interest and links, just to help your paying customers.
Bet you delete/edit this
Thanks for your comment “Catman” – we’ll have to agree to disagree…. You can be enthusiastic about your service, and knowledgeable, without the ability to write well about it.
Regarding your accusation I’d be happy to see where you think this has happened? I very rarely (if ever) post on Fan Pages I don’t manage, and I also don’t edit posts to my blog, apart from to remove spammy links.
I’ve also dropped you an email about this.
I write blogs for clients too and why not? Writing is a very different skill from running a company, plus it takes time that few busy executives have to spare.
It’s shame this blog has been sidetracked by Catman’s comments, which are something of a nonsense. Companies employ people to carry out work for them – it makes no difference whether those people are employed internally or externally, they all have to be trained and briefed to carry out that work, whether it be a core competency of the business like accounting, or a related competency like marketing. To use your rather poorly expressed example Catman, an accountant will employ accountants and bookkeepers to prepare accounts for its clients – be that on an employed or freelance basis. So yes, an accountant will employ another accountant, a mechanic will employ another mechanic if necessary. What matters is that the company delivers the best service it can to its customers, however that is achieved.
When a company ‘bothers’ to employ someone to write a blog, it is seeking to ensure that blog delivers the most relevant information about its products and services in a timely fashion – if that is best achieved by employing someone outside that company, properly briefed and trained, then so be it.
Getting back to the point of the blog, I guess a prospective client is always going to seek examples to judge your service by Nikki, pointing them to a mixed topic blog (like Birds on the Blog, or maybe setting up your own?) should probably help; after that, my questions would probably be related to results – and if they stack up, examples become less of an issue.
Catman, I have just read your comment “Anyway on to something else if I may, I’d like kindly ask you to stop the underhand practice of joining and posting on other peoples fb fan pages with false interest and links, just to help your paying customers.”
Can you provide evidence of this? I have never seen Nikki, Leigh or any of the team at NikkiPilkington.com post on other fan pages falsely, or adding links. I think without seeing one shred of proof, you are barking up the wrong tree,or should it be meowing?
Back to the original discussion – I see nothing wrong with ghost blogging to help people who do not have the time or ability to write their own, there is nothing false in this or dishonest, it’s the companies thoughts and beliefs that are written down by a third person.
If it was dishonest, half the books you read would be illegal, think mainstream authors such as James Patterson, Clive Cussler, they do it. Their books are better because of it and the sales and frequency of books prove that. Even prolific author Barbara Cartland dictated her books, does that mean they are not her work?
I write blogs for companies too. It’s a useful service and something I enjoy doing.
Why do some people think ghost-blogging is wrong when they don’t turn a hair at ghost-written books?
(Imagine what it would be like if celebrities actually wrote the books they ‘write’? Christmas day scene:
“Hi Dad, how are you going with ‘The big book of my life’ by Nigel Mansell?”
“Errr…umm…yeah, great, dear. Just going over page one again to make sure I understand it…”)
Nikki, you can join my facebook fan page and post on it if you want. It would do my page good I reckon.
She’s already posted on mine. So nerr!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by NikkiPilkington, NikkiPilkington, NikkiPilkington, Glan Yr Afon, Bob Pilkington and others. Bob Pilkington said: RT @NikkiPilkington: So who else do you write blogs for? Err, we can’t tell you… http://ow.ly/V3RX [...]
Blog writing for clients is the same as writing any form of marketing, surely – PR, copy for leaflets, websites, press releases. Any business owner that has the sense to recognise their limitations and call in an expert is surely doing the best for their business and offering the best information for their clients. They are only going to outsource such important aspects of their marketing to those who will do an excellent job – and there’s no doubt that you do, Nikki.
Oh, Catman … did you pick that nickname because you’re catty?
Anyway, get this. As I’m sure you would know if you’re of any consequence in the business world, you can’t be all things to all people and their dogs. And once again as I’m sure you know, one of the key elements of success in entrepreneurism is knowing how to delegate, how much, and to whom.
So what is the difference between getting professional, skilled experts in to write blogs on your company’s behalf after a very thorough briefing and brand/culture immersion session … and getting an advertising agency in to sell the company’s products or services to its marketplace?
None, I would say. However the dear old internet, having had its foundations in rather crude 1-2-1 electronic associations seems somehow to have developed an image of being “personal” – no commercial bullshit, marketing-speak is seen as phoney, and the only way to go is to tell the knickers-off truth about everything.
Tell me something, and be honest. Would you really bother to read a company’s blog if the posts were written by the IT wallahs or the despatch clerks or the back office staff who would, undoubtedly, tell you how it really is, balls out … but not actually even hint at the benefits you might gain by associating with the company and perhaps considering buying whatever it’s selling?
I don’t think so.
I’m delighted that more and more corporate promotion is going the blogging route, because as we’ve seen the nature of blogging cuts the crap and doesn’t allow the absurd corporate puffery we used to see in the offline media.
So don’t slag off the ghost-bloggers, because despite their being paid suppliers, they – like everyone else in our online society – are forced to be honest and represent their clients honestly.
Otherwise they might be ridiculed by people like you…
Suzan St Maur
http://TheSuzeReport.blogspot.com