Companies have been telling stories in the name of selling products for decades, but with the rapid growth in content marketing, they have blurred the lines between content and commerce.
Here are some strategies for creating ethical content:
Don’t focus on yourself.
Readers want information that’s useful which often means going beyond your company’s happenings or products and services and sourcing ideas from the broader industry.
Credit all content sources and inspirations.
With online content, it’s expected that you’ll link to the sources you cite or those that sparked the idea for your content. These links show respect for the original author and provide your readers with additional resources if they’d like to learn more.
Deliver on your headline’s promise.
Strive for a headline that’s clickable but also doesn’t over-promise. Once you’ve written the piece, reread it to make sure that it lives up to the headline.
Write for readers, not search engines. Avoid stuffing your content full of your keywords.
Follow the values of good journalism.
Content marketers are increasingly thinking like journalists rather than marketers, so they should abide by the principles of good journalism .
The bottom line to ethical content creation is giving readers valuable content that reads more like journalism than marketing.
via technorati.com/the-5-pillars-of-effective-content-marketing-etiquette
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