If your firm pushes business models and ethical tradition, it’s likely a high-incident target for compliance action. That compels firms like Playboy to be attentive to compliance strategy, as they expect to mount defenses for their business and brand.

Facebook:
Playboy Enterprises has 1.5 million friends on FB.  It is an important point of engagement.  But because of that, they’ve made the strategic choice of adhering to Facebook’s non-nudity policies.  They police content and quickly respond to notices.  The Facebook community then has links into the firm’s adult publications.

YouTube:
Playboy celebrated a recent anniversary by inviting women to make their own YouTube video about why they should be the magazine’s next centerfold.  Again, nudity was prohibited. Playboy worked with Google to implement “pre-screening” so that content, identity, and model releases could be verified.  It was a succesful campaign, but the additional compliance steps removed the immediacy of YouTube.  The successful execution of the campaign in itself was a victory, as it extended the brand meaningfully into the social space.

Twitter:
It’s not a big channel for Playboy.  Still, they have staff who are listening and engaged, but at a low level. The brand in present, but not very active.

Email Marketing:
Not surprisingly, opt-in requires agreement of age and acceptance that content is not obscene in the receiver’s community.

Further, if the email contains sexually explicit content, it must be labeled as sexually explicit in subject line. Imagine how easily an ISP could decide to filter anything with that subject. Playboy tends to use suggestive, though not explicit, graphics that link back to properly disclaimed adult sites.

Link begging is the practice of identifying link prospects, usually through competitor backlink analysis, and then contacting each one of those sites and begging for a link. Link begging typically ignores the original context of the link, as well as the probable motivation of the linker. Not only that, it’s potentially destructive to an organization’s industry relationships and the link builder’s will to live.

Engaging the experts and bloggers in your space can lead to far greater returns on your time and effort. Engagement will also make you happier – it emphasizes community, participation and recognizing the good work of others. Here are four content models and outreach suggestions for engagement-based link building.

These are listed in a rough order of progression that should help to grow your publisher relationships.

1) Aggregate and Curate Great Content
What are the best blog posts, articles, PDFs, Videos, discussion threads, twitter feeds, conferences, news sites and social networking sites in your niche? Research ALL the resources in your space and then organize them into meaningful categories. Focus on the categories that contain people you’d like to engage with in the group interview phase.

Simply listing the resources is not ideal, though it’s certainly far easier. It’s better to spend some time thinking about how to best present your resource aggregation in a way that makes it easier for your readers to make decisions about what links to click on. Here’s an excellent example: Link Building Master Class

Once you’ve created your resource aggregation – ideally with 100+ resources from 100+ different sources – email these folks and let them know that they were mentioned in your round up. Ask them, if they think it’s worthy, to share it with their audience.

Most importantly, while mentioning the resource, ask them if they want to participate in your group interview…

2) The Group Interview
The group interview can be a powerful way to build links, reciprocity and high-value content. As noted above, we recommend that you request that people answer group interview questions AS you outreach to let them know that you included their resource in your roundup. This warms them up and increases the likelihood that they will link to your resource. Further it indicates that you genuinely believe they add value to the space.

Once you start to get some affirmative responses begin to work on your questions. Generate your interview questions by reviewing previous expert interviews in your space. Aggregate questions and look for angles that haven’t been touched on before. You could also hit controversial topics, or get reactions to some of the latest news. Our recommendation is to keep your questions to about about 5 or so.

Here is an example of a group interview we did recently, and here is one we admire that takes the group interview to a whole new level. If you have design resources available we highly recommend the second course.

Once you have completed and published your work, reach out to the participants to let them know their interview is live. It’s a good idea to ask them to mention it to their readers and Twitter followers as well, though this is not always necessary

3) Solo Interviews
Solo interviews work best – in terms of link generation – when they’re interviews with notable experts in your industry. Another way to generate a list of solo interview subjects is to crack open your analytics and see which of your experts drove the most traffic to your site through their promotion efforts. Which of your experts’ tweets about the group interview got retweeted the most? Which experts linked directly from their blogs?

These folks would all make excellent candidates for follow up solo interviews. Make sure that you’re asking new questions that probe into genuine areas of passion for your experts. Treat these solo interview questions with the utmost concern and attention to the subject’s background and history. Learn as much as you can about each specific subject and use what you learn to guide your line of questioning.

Outreach for solo interviews is a little less intensive. You should primarily let the subject know the interview is up. If this subject has been interviewed before, consider making a list of the sites that link directly to these interviews and letting folks there know there’s a new interview up. You could also comment the previous interviews, as a further interview is highly-relevant.

4) Create Interesting “Writing Assignments”
In creating a writing assignment or prompt for your space you first come up with an intriguing concept or question – perhaps one left over from your interview questions. Then you answer this question yourself and implore your readers to do the same. The goal is to make it something that others would genuinely have the urge to write about in their next blogging session.

Another along the writing assignment lines is to just send the question to a number of folks and ask them to answer it on their blog. This “distributed group interview” can often result in links when the authors mention who prompted them to write in the first place. Consider aggregating their answers on your blog, and even highlighting the best paragraphs from each person.

In closing, don’t put yourself through the agony of link begging. Get creative, get engaging and use your questions to generate links, relationships and targeted traffic to your website.

Garrett French is the co-founder of Ontolo, Inc., and co-creator of the Ontolo Link Building Toolset, which uses your target keywords to find and grade link prospects. The Link Building Toolset reduces link prospecting and qualification time, letting you focus on the most important part of link building: relationships.

In talking with people about the post The Siteless Web and the End of Brand Website Rule: Web 3.0, I found myself suggesting that online visitors will encounter us through three types of experiences:

1. Sites we control: traditional, publishing-based information distribution.
2. Sites others control: content and social networks that put our message under others’ control.
3. Applications: either as interface, such as Tweetdeck, or as aggregation point, such as Salesforce.

Of course, sites others control are quite likely driven by applications.  Facebook is an application; so is Google search. But they typically appear to users as websites.

The move away from a page-based user-experience to an application metaphor has been slowly approaching for years. The “portal” was said to break that metaphor.  Same with the idea of the application put on online and sold as a service. This has been a slow shift.  Video, AJAX, and data-driven services all exceed the page metaphor. It’s been hanging by a thread for some time.

However, there is a huge change happening in how people access the web. The move from “screen” to “hand-held” is the continental divide that will shift development away from the page metaphor.

• 75% of Twitter access doesn’t come through its web page at all. It’s through API-integrated applications, which provide a richer, easier-to-use application-type experience, particularly via mobile devices.
• Consider the proliferation of mobile applications for iPhone and iPad – the internet will be increasingly used as a medium for people interacting with applications, not browsers and HTML pages.

The Web Has No Pages, Really.
Web pages are not pages at all. In some ways they are still inferior to their printer counterparts.  Turning a page is instant; loading a page is still far from that. Viewing a page is consistent with the designer’s execution, while web pages render in a variety of ways, based on programming and browser technology.

As we move from the screen to hand display, we will consume ever more information through applications.  They provide more consistent, space-concentrated, responsive user experiences.  Web and application design will completely overlap.

Will Corporate and Brand Websites Still Have a Place?
Absolutely.  But the Chief Listening Officer and Engagement Architects from the company application will have a greater share of the juicer innovation projects that define the firm.

Compare this to annual reports, business cards, or printed resumes.  Corporations still make lovely annual reports.  They just don’t matter as much now that other channels provide richer expressions of the corporate brand.  People still have business cards, but when was the last time you were impressed by high-quality card stock?

So by all means finish that corporate website redesign. But then, seriously, it’s time to look to the other buckets of web distribution and figure out what’s really next.

This is an idea I hope we can start to discuss in all the places we talk about the future of the Web.

It is from one of this blog’s first posts, in 2007, Web 3.0 – Envisioning the Web’s Next Big Change.

Here’s the idea:

Web 3.0 will be characterized by integration of the web into application-driven experiences. If user-generated content is a mainstay of 2.0 – then machine integrated content is the base of Web 3.0.

The result will be a web experience that at first is highly distributed and less centered on home pages. This, I believe, will easily transition to applications experiences that don’t rely on the conventions of pages, sites, or even being online.

This systematic integration is already changing the web.

• Its technical drivers include the use of XML, ASP business models, open id/federated identity, rich media applications and open APIs. (Think of Facebook, Salesforce, and Twitter).
• Its legal driver is section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. (Web 2.0 is enabled through this provisions subsidy of legal immunity for republishers.)
  
• Its market drivers include the desire to organize and unify (mash-up) information from distributed sources such as social networks to create consolidated user experiences (think Salesforce and Hootsuite).

In many cases (Web 3.0) won’t appear to be the Web at all. Applications will consume and produce public web content — but the user experience will be increasingly mediated. The online experience will be increasingly an application experience.

In a Web 2.0 world, brands built their own sites, and customers said what brands stood on them and on social sites. In a Web 3.o world, the concept of specific sites evolves into offsite experiences and mash-ups that integrate content.

The Web 3.0 world is less about place (or domain) than voice and identity.

Section 230 Protection Is a Root of the Siteless Web
As this is both a legal and tech blog, I should point out that most of the “siteless web” today is hugely “subsidized” by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Our current connected network of application sites that aggregate or host ideas contributed by others would likely not exist without this legal structure.

Example 1: Brand Sites Don’t Frame Brands; Web Applications Like Search and Social Media Do.
Go type Modernista.com into Google. Click on the first result.

Modernista! doesn’t produce or promote a home website at all. It has created an interface to the web.

The firm’s customers make a considered purchase that is more influenced by what others say than how an agency describes itself on its brand sites.

The Modernista! site is an interface to a distributed set of links to other websites. Their “About Us” section is Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter. Their portfolio is on Delicious.  Their news section is what Google News and Google Blog Search say about them.

Their authority is not from the endorsement of these sites. It is from the ideas posted by those who use them. Modernista!’s credibility comes from the sites they don’t control — and ironically, those sites don’t control the content either.

The truth from outside the company can be rewarding and risky.

Did they just win an award, lose an account, post an idea? Customers know that truth and brand are in fact different things. Modernista! realized this early, and has managed to that new reality.

Example 2: Brands Migrate Off-Site to “Fish Where the Fish Are.”
Some businesses are choosing to skip building their own sites or to promote their off-site presences ahead of the brand website.

The kayak rental shop I went to on vacation decided to forego the work of building, maintaining, and promoting its own site.

Instead, it set up an easy-to-remember Meetup account and positioned itself where its demographic was already going.

In the past, brand sites have tried to build their own communities. Most failed. Brands aren’t naturally good at aggregating audiences, and most people are too busy to create multiple identities in what are essentially walled gardens run by beer companies, film distributors, or potential lawyers.

But what if brands were in social networks with their clients, and brought something of value to the party? It is easier to do this, and the market-reach results are greater.

Brand Terms Need to Send Competitors to Oblivion, Not Win Top Spots.
The most obvious example of this may be our own names.  Search Google for “Dave Wieneke.” Just like with Modernista! you’ll see a string of pages that I either partly control or don’t control at all:

• LinkedIn (which is all about connecting and endorsing others)
• UsefulArts and its Twitter discussion.
• The law blog portal Lexmonitor.
• My presentation on Usability and Brand Power on SlideShare.
• And so on…

The goal isn’t to change the order of these results; it’s to make sure there is positive coverage of Dave Wieneke the digital marketer, as opposed to the ichthyologist or the golf pro with the same name.

Now see how this applies to the former model of the monolithic brand website. For SEO these smaller results work as a team, not to take the top position, but to take up many positions on the page.

Decentralized and Recentralized
But this tactic isn’t just for doing Google searches on ourselves. This fundamental change will shift the landscape on how brands reach people. Email marketing (a sweet spot for me) will be fundamentally transformed. And application and machine design will start to leverage this change in use cases.

I’m looking forward to elaborating these last points. But for now, do you see this too? Is the brand website in decline, and is it being supplanted by a set of increasingly mashed-up offsite experiences?

How Do You Make a Great Page?
Since my presentations are illustrations, you may get only the flavor of discussion. But you’ll also see some of the design and conversion tactics talked about through the presentation’s design.  This is also a big thanks to my RISD professors, fellow conference speakers, and usability pros who have shared their ideas with me over the years.

Toll Takers and Waiters: The Structure of Exchanges
There were familiar themes about putting people in front of brands.  But there was also lots of new stuff, like comparing the differences between broadcast ads and websites with toll takers and waiters.  I’d like to have said more about simplicity (the good manners of our age), and anthropology of web sites. This is the third time I’ve talked with this group, so I guess I’m already working on ideas for our next visit.  Hope you enjoy this!

When I logged in this morning, the featured word was “Moscow” — but all the Tweets it featured were pornographic images.

This may have been more a social hack than a technical one. But either way, it appears that Twitter’s newbie interface has been made into an April Fools’ Day Prank. Let’s hope newbies like nudity.

As an organization, when invited to work with a client, although we may not initially feel one way or another towards, let’s say, the medical device industry for example—we do feel strongly about the real-life people, friends, and partners that we support with our efforts. So, when a client asks us to engage their audience because they don’t have the expertise, the resources, or “bandwidth” to execute their social media strategy, we lend a hand.

In my mind, this new “digital ghostwriting push” is actually nothing new: popular brands have been doing it for years—via customer service “response” letters, pre-recorded phone calls, emails and direct mail pieces. This is just the latest version of busy people outsourcing their surplus work to others who they have trained and who they trust.

Do you think that Teddy Roosevelt (or any President for that matter) really replied to every letter he received during his time at the White House? Do you think that the Beatles really penned back responses to all their swooning teenage followers?  Do you think that the President of Ford, Toyota, Coke, or (Fill in Big Corporation Here) always respond directly to letters, emails, or tweets that they receive? Do you “believe” that it is absolutely from them if it has their name on it?

Bottom line: the average person only has so much bandwidth with which to process and reply to the information coming at them—and if you’re @THE_REAL_SHAQ (a brand in and of himself), for example, there’s just no chance that you can reply to almost 3 millions followers’ messages and maintain any semblance of a life… yet someone is taking the time to reply to his fans every day…

Not only is it naive to assume that big names and small companies are executing 100% of their own Social Media—it’s also a bit silly to get offended if you find out otherwise.

Social media opens up avenues of conversations that customers and fans have never had before, but it also opens up the virtual floodgates to companies and people who are in the limelight, and if you don’t know how to manage this, don’t have the time, or the expertise—then you’re liable to get burned, unless you have the right (and properly trained) “support team” behind you.

I’ll even take it one step further in my argument and say that if you aren’t outsourcing this task to an internal team or someone externally that “gets it” – then you are actually doing a disservice to your audience and providing poor customer service. Most conversations with a brand don’t require a response directly from Oprah, Guy Kawasaki, or the CEO of GoDaddy.com (@DrBobParsons) for that matter. Your trusted sources can help your audience by responding to their questions, suggestions or needs.

One thing that I will admit is that you need to think through this outsourcing process or it can backfire. The key lies in the conversations you have with the team you “outsource” this process to (this could be a bunch of internal staff members or an outsourced team):

Here are some things to consider…

-          Is it a 2-way conversation between you the outsourcer and the outsourcee?

-          Do you trust these people to understand and reflect your thoughts and values?

-          Have your spent the time training these folks?

-          Are you accessible to answer questions in near real-time?

-          Do you take the time to sit down regularly and review the process and the requests coming in?

-          Are your reactive in your approach or are you being pro-active about avoiding problems and building a system that responds to the needs of your audience?

You also absolutely need to take time to integrate social media into your life—it might be sharing something you find funny or responding to and commenting on issues that you feel need your personal input or opinion. There are some things you just can’t fake.

So, with plenty of ideas to digest in the above paragraphs—I leave you with this final question: if you are looking for an answer from an organization or from a person with a super social media presence like Guy Kawasaki, Oprah, or Scott Monty the head of social media at Ford Motor Company —

-          Would you rather receive a well-crafted response that reflects the true beliefs, opinions, and thoughts of an individual or organization—that might be from a “trained responder”

-          OR would you rather not get a response at all?

This is a response to Ja-Nae Duane’s article, which in turn responds to Dave Weineke’s article, both on UsefulArts.us, Dave’s blog.

You should go read both.  But briefly, Dave thinks a blog article written by one person and posted under another name is a violation of ethics.  Ja-Nae, speaking as a client, begs to differ.

Let me, as a professional, explain why Ja-Nae is not only justified, but supported by a long history that should be admired and respected.

Those of you who know me in person probably know I come off better in print than I often do in public.  I’m not a stylish dresser.  I’m a bit geekish, and when I am not on a podium, my speech is overly-mannered and too fast.

But I can write.  And I have a terrific ear.

I have ghost written a blog for a Harvard professor and have ghost written speeches for a major figure in philanthropy and a number of politicians.  I have written articles for CEOS and professors that were placed in major publications, and ghosted an article by a major magazine editor when he was asked to write a guest column for Newsweek.

My name not on those works.  Not only that, but in many cases, I am contractually or otherwise professionally obligated not to list those works on my resume or mention the clients by name.

But I have to say, I was paid well by most of them (some of the political work was volunteer).

Is it ethical to publish an article solely in our client’s name?  It always has been.  We might be listed as staff on a publication, or a roster.  The thoughts we write are not, technically, our own.  We don’t really do much more than a radio journalist does when interviewing a public figure, cutting small talk, removing the um’s and ah’s, and re-recording and restating questions to better fit the time allotted for a story.  Oh, wait — you mean you didn’t know they did that either?

Even when ghosting is transparent, it has been quickly forgotten or overlooked by the public in the past.  Every American history reader knows President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country!”

But Kennedy only *said* those words, which are attributed to him in every reference work of quotations in the world.  A genius speech writer, Ted Sorenson, wrote those words for him.

Sorenson, an intelligent, intellectual, modest man, did what he did out of purpose and love, with a finely honed sense of language — and an intimate understanding of the man he worked for.

His words carried Kennedy’s authentic voice around the world.

The job of a ghost or speech writer is to get so far inside the mind and skin of her/his client that you are no more “faking” the person’s words, than a hairdresser is “faking” the person’s hair. Ideally, a professional makes the expression of style a natural extension of the individual. The client runs a comb through, and every word falls in place as though it grew that way.

Sometimes, the “fix” is obvious.  Did anyone think Sarah Palin solo’d her book?  Authenticity is transparent with or without a ghost (Lynn Vincent, senior writer for the Christian publication World Magazine).  The Christian Science Monitor estimates that 90% of politicians’ books are ghosted, Obama’s being a notable recent exception.

Some of us do this better than others.  We have, in the parlance of social media, been “delivering authenticity” for longer than any media workers.

True, in Rome, senators were required to study rhetoric and elocution and deliver oratory that could run over six hours of prepared speech at a time. But European and later American tradition is not so demanding. We tend to nearly ignore who actually wrote the great speeches of our history.

George Washington asked Hamilton and Madison to help draft his farewell address.  Lincoln famously wrote his own copy.  Winston Churchill was lauded for writing his own speeches — as an exception from a more common case of hiring help, especially after the advent of radio.

Although Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a great speech writer and worked the profession himself as a younger man, Sam Rosenberg wrote or helped to revise many of FDR’s speeches.  Rosenberg stayed on to enhance Truman’s delivery.

Obama depends on a very young speechwriter, Jon Favreau, (b. 1981) who I am in awe of — but he wrote his speech on race, the “A more perfect union” speech, himself (and, honestly, you could hardly claim to tell his own style from Favreau’s).

The recent insistence that public figures write all their own copy (speeches, articles, books, social media) expresses more of a fashion in media than an understanding of its history.  It also reflects the sometimes ugly requirements of our cult of celebrity.

We are not asking public social media figures for autographs; we’re asking for the essence of their  thoughts.  Most are busy people, and many are simply not writers, even if they might be able to speak; some are not speakers even if they may be able to code, manage, or act.

If these non-writers don’t hire social media professionals who can be delegated to accurately and authentically portray their ethics and character, and even their style of delivery, then they need to find better staff. (I have hours available!)

It is as easy for a professional to anticipate what a client would say in any situation as it is to know what a mother or a father or a best friend might say.  And as easy to know when you aren’t sure and should check in.

A professional knows when to have a draft reviewed, when a personal touch is absolutely required or a critical statement must be made.

We are human, and we do make mistakes.  Hey, you’ve watched West Wing, right?

Social media is in deep denial of its emergence as the child of public relations and speech writing, which has traditionally been delegated — and, yes, purchased — by athletes, actors, singers, CEOs, coders, and many others.

These media fashions are changing to disadvantage non-writers.  I find that unfair and cruel, and far more unrealistic than the concept that you are getting a translated window to a genuine person.

The best speech writers bring a bardic voice to  the client’s message — and the client will find it more truly speaks his or her own heart, whether in a traditional speech to the public, a press release, or a tweet or blog.

We have been invisible, and as such, unrespected.  But behind the curtain, speech writers and our sister professions have delighted and inspired you your entire life.  Transparency may destroy the illusion, but don’t vilify us.  Most of us are genuinely good people, doing authentically good work.   Our clients do have a brain, a heart, and courage — we just help them realize it.

Make it a reason to admire what we do, when we amplify an authentic voice.

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to yesterday’s post, The Ethics of Ghost Writing and Marionette Social Media.

As someone who does a tremendous amount of outsourcing, this is a topic that is near and dear to me.

Blogging:
I am a huge advocate of outsourcing my blog writing. Why?

Well, I have two reasons:

• Time: I am an idea person. I think of more blog posts that I can actually write. It sometimes inhibits my ability to even outline a blog post. With that being said, it is much easier to create a topic and a few key points that I want highlighted and then hand it over to someone I trust with “my voice” and who can deliver it to me in a timely fashion.
• Trust: Tina and I have been working together for a while now. She gets who I am, what I am trying to say, and how I want to say it. She was the one who took my notes, outline, and previous articles and assembled my new book, “How to Start Your Business with $100”

Because she and I worked so closely on something so personal, it was an easy switch for her to start writing my blog posts for my blog as well.

Social Media:
This is an area where I change my tune.

SM interactions have to be personal. Sure, you can have someone scan news and articles for you, but at the end of the day, only YOU know how you would respond to a comment or how you would engage an individual.

As a social media strategist, my team and I have had to take on personas more frequently than I would care to share. I make the recommendation to have us teach the individual how easy it is to engage in the social sphere, however, many people still feel that social media is overwhelming and refuse to touch it.

On the flip side of that, how would you feel if you were corresponding with someone who was not really that individual? Would you feel cheated? Would you care?

My experience is that people absolutely care. They want to know that they are reaching that individual and not a member of their staff. It completely changes people’s perception of that individual.

When people contact me on Twitter or Facebook, they always engage with me. I wish I could say the same for some of my “social” clients.

So, where do you draw the line? Well, that’s your choice. Mine is to outsource what I feel I can to someone I trust and handle the personal engagement: online and offline.

What do you do?

—-

Ja-Nae Duane is CEO of Wild Women Entrepreneurs, and Social Media Strategist of “How to Start Your Business with $100”.

So here’s the nice, clear thesis this post will advance:

Unacknowledged ghost authorship of social media is unethical if you put your name on it.

Many errors seem benign in the beginning. But no matter how gradual its onset, the practice is wrong, unethical, and a threat to reputation and business.

The Slippery Slope
Personal conventions and ethics are still catching up to the “Brand You” world we live in.

Social media is a good way to extend your brand. So, first comes the blogging. That’s essentially a magazine, and publications outsource their writing all the time. So after a while trust, authenticity, and transparency become just production values in the service of gaining subscribers and brand awareness.

And once you have a ghostwritten blog, it’s a small step to ghost Twitter updates. Again, there are justifications (did you think Obama did all his own campaign Twittering?).

But the whole point of social media is to have a two way relationship. So these channels generate comments and replies, and then other blogs and Twitter feeds comment on them.  The next step is outsourcing these interactions — and that’s how brands can end up with a social media house of cards.

The Truth is Simple
A byline is a statement of fact; it identifies the author of a piece of writing. Therefore, it must be accurate.

Kanye West’s blog, which kept publishing posts even after he was jailed, exposed a factual lie. Hugh Jackman’s Twitter feed, ironically called The Real Hugh Jackman, was embarrassingly shown to be written by staff. Outsourcing social media is okay; lying about it is an error.

The problem in both these examples isn’t that the celebrities were exposed for not writing the entries personally.  It is that they were making a factual claim that was false.

Less Conflict of Interest, More Feigning of Interest
Guy Kawasaki gracefully disclosed his use of three ghostwriters on his Twitter account.  Having been a proponent of social media and transparency, some of his readers found his outsourcing hypocritical.  One reader said he was complimented that Kawasaki had taken the time to read and comment on his blog. Now he has cause to question whether that was a faux-personal touch.

Like Martha Stewart, who advocates a lifestyle that isn’t sustainable by a single human, Guy Kawasaki is also an evangelist.  His use of technology and social media is core to his brand.  As he noted in his defense of outsourcing part of his Twittering:

“Basically, for 99.9 percent of people on Twitter, it is about updating friends and colleagues about how the cat rolled over,” he said. “For a tenth of a percent it is a marketing tool.”

Compare Guy Kawasaki to Charlie Baker
Harvard Pilgram Healthcare CEO Charlie Baker wrote his own blog on health care policy. It was a sign of discipline and a willingness to engage. Right or wrong, frequent or spotty, the guy invested personally in engaging the public with his own thinking.  I also recently learned that Louis Armstrong wrote two autobiographies — there was none of that “as told to stuff”; he wrote his whole life. This was a project no less than his music.

Indeed, Mr. Kawasaki  recently updated his Twitter profile to name his contributing authors. That ended the ghostwriting.  Outsourcing social to others, or through automation, is fine, but it’s best done with the transparency of attribution. Martha Stewart can’t do it without staff, and neither can Guy, and that’s okay.

Separating People and Brands Is the Key
Facebook has an interesting rule: profiles are for people, fan pages are for brands.  That’s good, because I hold people and products to different standards.  In this crazy, self-promotional world, it helps to draw a bright line between the personal and the public.

In a world where there are programs that assign power grades for Facebook, it’s important to specify what is work and what is entirely personal. And, from time to time, remind the colleagues we connect to that there will be occasional kid photos and cat stories, and they’re for friends.

Hey, your comments and perspectives are especially invited. Please comment here, or email a guest post to me at strategy2.0 at gmail dot com.

Response 1: The Ethics of of Ghost Blogging and Social Media are Different, by Ja-Nae Duane.
Response 2: Blog Ghost Writing Amplifies Authentic Voices, by Shava Nerad