Ethics and social media: Could a good strategy mitigate the risks?

The highly-regarded (and rightfully so) Todd Defren is in the midst of a series of blog posts exploring ethical issues in social media for business. That he’s doing the series at all is a testament to Todd’s leadership in this area; he’s openly discussing many grey-area issues that he and his team have encountered and he’s more than willing to admit they’ve done some questionable things for clients over the years.

Yesterday’s post was on ghostblogging - an issue that many a social media professional has encountered for him or herself. A client is eager to get on board with social media and a blog seems like the logical place to start - after all, one doesn’t ascend to the C-Suite without a few good ideas and a propensity for sharing them, right?

Reward? Meet Risk

But, as one of NLC’s own c-suiters discussed in a previous post, there are inherent risks in launching a corporate blog, especially at the CEO level. Chief among them? Loss of enthusiasm. The rate of new posts drops off, momentum is lost and the blog becomes a neglected tool.

That’s where a ghostblogger comes in. Someone from inside (or, more dubiously, outside) the organization picks up the proverbial pen and fills the content void. The CEO saves face, the ghostblogger gets to contribute and the audience gets their fix. As Michael Scott would say, it’s a win-win-win.

Except maybe it isn’t.

Todd’s post does a great job of exploring the ethical implications of ghostblogging so I’ll leave it to him and the commenters to skin that particular cat. I’m more intrigued by this question:

Do you need a corporate blog in the first place?

Todd seems to think so; he goes so far as to refer to “the increasingly must-have nature of official corporate blogs.” Indeed, the entire question of ghostblogging in the c-suite is predicated upon the idea that a blog is all but mandatory these days.

But isn’t that sort of putting the cart before the horse? Most communications / public relations / marketing strategists will tell you that it’s strategy first, then tools. Figure out what you need to do then identify the ways to do it. It’s the standard POST method: People, Objectives, Strategy, then Tools/Technologies.

If there isn’t the corporate will or infrastructure (human, technical or otherwise) to support a corporate blog, should one be launched anyway?

Todd himself says “In my deepest baritone, I am fond of telling clients, ‘If you are posting less than 2 – 3x a week, what you’re publishing is not a blog but a newsletter.’” So is there something inherently wrong with that?

There’s no such thing as a social media Swiss army knife

Blogs and wikis and all the other shiny social media tools are simply that: tools. They can be very effective if used in the right circumstances. But as far as tools go, they’re more robertson screwdriver than Swiss army knife.

If you’ve got an engaged CEO with ideas to spare and a commitment to sharing them regularly on a blog, then a blog you should propose. But if it’s going to take ethical aerobics to make it work, perhaps you’d be better off looking for another tool.