Skip to content

Role of third party writing your blog content

December 4, 2004

Blogs have traditionally been written exclusively by the person whose name is on the top of the blog, or at least by an employee of the company publishing the blog. But business people, lawyers included, are often not the best writers of marketing material. They need some help.

Steve Rubel posts this week about The Role of the PR Counselor in Client Blogs. Interesting stuff on how marketing professionals may be able to help businesses with their marketing blogs.

Steve noted that Newsbluntly, a Newsmarket broadcast journalism blog, is actually openly written by their PR firm, Plesser and Associates. Steve’s feeling is that’s ok:

We should praise both the client and their agency for having the courage to be completely transparent. Plesser’s proudly saying “yes, we are writing our client’s blog content and we’re not ashamed.” Newsmarket, on the flip side, is also proudly slapping their name on the site and saying “yes, we’re ok with this.”

Blogging is the biggest PR tool to come along since the Internet first dawned in the mid 1990s. As an industry, it’s going to take time to identify best practices, sort out exactly where the boundaries lie and what the roles should be. I doubt that agencies will ignore companies who ask us to launch blogs even though they may not have the time to actively write them, just as we don’t turn away ghost writing speeches or bylines. What we do need to do, however, is separate what works from what doesn’t and what level of transparency and input is required. Time will tell.

LexBlog is often approached by law firms who want to blog but want us to publish the content. My response is that blogging is not a passive sport and that it will require some involvement on their part. But as more lawyers ask, LexBlog is going to closely examine what we can do to help law firms with their blogs. Content publishing is a real possibility.

Posted in: