There is no denying that, as a business owner, you know your business better than anyone else. This is what makes it so easy to get lured into the idea that you are naturally the best person to handle your social media and SEO marketing. Unfortunately, managing a successful SEO campaign requires more than just knowing the company — it means knowing how to use social media, blogging, and other web content to your business’s benefit and having the time to do so. Many social media campaigns are successful because these business’s owners have chosen to hire a ghostwriter, and a number of business owners have infamously failed to market themselves online by trying to handle everything themselves
Amy’s Baking Company became one of the most notorious examples of a company trying to handle its own online presence, thanks in large part to the business’s appearance on a business rehab television show, but they were not alone in how they handled criticism. Like Amy’s Baking Company, Pigalle Boston’s chef used the business’s social media account to respond to each criticism of his business. Both businesses responded to negative comments with attacks of their own. A ghostwriter could have taken a step back from taking every opinion so personally and helped these companies maintain a good image.
Responding to news unrelated to your business can also cause unwanted controversy, as Chick-Fil-A learned in the summer of 2012. Their owner and president tweeted some comments regarding “traditional family values” shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision on the Defense of Marriage Act that led to a number of boycotts of the business as well as “kiss-in” demonstrations by same-sex couples.
The most common mistakes, however, are the ones that don’t get national media attention. Those are the boring Facebook pages, the blog posts that don’t get read, the Twitter updates that annoy would-be customers into unfollowing, and the content that is full of grammar and spelling mistakes. All of those slip-ups get attributed to the company that posts them and often to the owner, as well. Ultimately, they can affect how people think of those businesses and the people who run them.
Ghostwriters are one of the least discussed tools of social media marketing, and that’s for good reason. A good ghostwriter makes you and your company look good because you get the credit for their work, and the amount of work they do for you is entirely in your hands. When you hire a ghostwriter, it may be for them to polish things you have already written about your business or you may have them write entirely new content for your blog or website that you can then claim as your own. These writers have the experience with social media marketing to make your business look good and the time to dedicate to the work, since they are not also trying to run your business. They can offer a level head when critics review your sites or your social media pages.
Sarah M is is a long-time lover of the written word, whether it was in her work as a reporter or copy editor or her current legal career. She has written blog posts and website content for everything from plumbers to start-up retail stores to major law firms.
