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The Responsible Blogger’s Guide to Dealing with Big Brother

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“What should I be doing better with my blog?” That’s one helluva question, isn’t it? As someone who blogs to support a thriving business, I think about that question every day. There are a lot of answers, many of which involve sexy topics like traffic, subscribers, and getting one zillion followers on Twitter. But when’s the last time you sat down and answered the question above with: “I should be paying more attention to blogging ethics.” Not so sexy. But as bloggers, we have to face facts about the world we live in. It feels like an anonymous platform where we can do and say whatever we want. But 2010 has a lot in common with 1984, and Big Brother comes in some forms that George Orwell never dreamed of. You need to be aware of one very important fact that many seem to forget: You can’t unGoogle anything When you launch your words into the blogosphere and social media universe, you’re laying a digital footprint in concrete. That concrete is the Internet Elephant, and it never forgets. Old versions of your site are cached. Facebook privacy blunders have ugly real-world consequences. And the Library of Congress is even planning on archiving our tweets. It feels like you can’t be held accountable for your rash words, but you can. Here are some tips on blogging ethics that will help keep your reputation clean. Especially if you’re going to make blogging a part of your business, you need to protect your interests. Your comments policy The bottom line is, it’s your blog and you have ultimate control over what gets posted in your comments section and what doesn’t make the cut. Please realize that whatever policy you decide on, not everyone is going to agree with you. I personally have a “post all comments” policy, except in instances of spam or blatant self-promoting garbage that adds nothing to the conversation. I also hold all comments that include links from first-time commenters for moderation (legitimate commenters are then white-listed). Some blogs allow trash talk, some don’t. Some allow profanity, some don’t. Every blogger needs to figure out what to do with the trolls . It’s your blog and your call. It’s always smart to make your comments policy clear. My developer is working right now on coding my site so my comments policy shows up in a cool style below each post. If you become known for deleting comments just because the reader isn’t a fawning yes-man, your credibility and authority will suffer. On the other hand, letting the trolls run free or allowing spam to trash up your comments won’t do your reputation any favors either. Proper accreditation If you use photos in your blog posts, use legitimate sources for images . (Assuming, of course, you’re not using your own images or photos.) Photos purchased from stock photo houses usually don’t require photo credit, although a few do. On the other hand, images you get under a Creative Commons license do have various requirements, usually at minimum a credit to the image owner. This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Don’t steal other people’s images or words and put them on your blog. That content doesn’t belong to you. It’s unethical and scummy. When you love a blog post so much that you want to send it to your readers, it is not okay to copy the post and paste it into your own blog or newsletter (even with accreditation) unless you get permission from the blogger. A better way to show your adoration is to select a handful of quotes (I prefer to stick with no more than 50-100 words) from the post and then provide a link back to the original post, with credit to the author. Understanding libel Ohhhhh — legalese! (The recovering attorney in Brian Clark will love this one.) Some bloggers make a hobby of calling people out for what they consider to be inappropriate practices, stupid decisions, or the like. Other bloggers are just plain malicious. If you’re going to go down this road, get your ducks in a row first. Read up on what constitutes libel . You owe it to yourself. What you might consider “free speech” could get you into trouble, as the line between opinion and malicious intent can be a very fine one. Make sure you have a liability insurance policy in place (this is a must). If you’re a member of The Author’s Guild, they offer Media Liability Insurance . You can also contact your insurance agent for a general business policy, but make sure it also covers libel and slander. You are not invisible Some people imagine that the internet lets them don a Cloak of Invisibility that bestows permission to do whatever the hell they want. It’s simply not true. You are responsible for your words on the web (and in life) no matter where you leave them or how anonymous you think you’re being. I don’t accept anonymous comments on my blog (including commenters who give fake email addresses) and here’s why: it shows me you’re not willing to be held accountable for your words. If you’re running a blog, there are some pretty cool tools you can use to verify identity or lend at least some level of “real world” status to a commenter you might hold in question. Email address verification tools: Did you know you can check any email address to see if it’s valid? Yep. And it’s free and easy. I use this one on a regular basis, but a simple web search for “verify email address” can point you towards others. IP address verification: Most comment systems (Disqus, InstenseDebate, and WordPress’s built-in system) display the IP address of every commenter to the moderator. I use WhoIs to verify IP addresses (I had to do this just last week for an unfortunate situation). If you continuously receive spam comments or inappropriate comments from a particular commenter, you can block an entire IP address from your blog. If you need help with this, just ping your comments system or hit up the WordPress Codex for tips on combating spam and unwanted comments. Disqus and IntenseDebate have built-in blacklist features. The best thing I can do here is to put just a bit of healthy fear into you. You’re not invincible, you’re not invisible, and you have a responsibility to both yourself and your audience. While you might have been looking for a more entertaining post on ethics (given my propensity for, ahem, colorful language), putting your thoughts out there on the web is serious stuff. As I said, nothing can be unGoogled. It’s not like a late-night TP-ing of your least favorite junior high school science teacher’s house. Drive-bys don’t work online. Strong ethical guidelines can keep your brand and keep your blog shop clean. If there are other best practices I’ve missed, lob them into the comments section below. While we don’t want to go all George Orwell, you have to remember that 1984 still applies in 2010 … and beyond (and it’s not such a bad thing). About the Author: Erika Napoletano is the Head Redhead at RedheadWriting LLC, a Denver-based online strategies consultancy. Her blog, RedheadWriting , is a bastion for “unpopular thoughts and blunt advice — delivered” and consistently strives to say what others won’t (but should) about marketing, social media, business integrity, and life in general.

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The Responsible Blogger’s Guide to Dealing with Big Brother

Why Being Too Diligent About Your Facts Can Hurt Your Content

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Once upon a time, the world was flat. Now it’s round. Who knows? Maybe some day we’ll find out it’s square. It’s hard to come across a cold hard fact anymore. Drink 8 glasses of water a day. Drink 16 glasses of water a day. Don’t drink any water; get all your water from fruits and vegetables. The contradictory advice goes on forever. There’s almost nothing you can nail down with absolute certainty. Even your own content. When you’re writing a game-changing piece of content, it’s natural to want to nail that article down with irrefutable data. So you spend seventeen hours to come up with data from books, white papers, and online sources. But your research is tainted No matter how hard you work to nail down the facts, you’re going to run into accuracy problems. That’s because your information sources aren’t entirely reliable. Even if the source is reliable, the information may not be. For example, a magazine may accurately report the findings of a study, but who says the study results are actually correct? Here are just a few ways your research can become tainted: Research is often funded by lobby groups pushing their own agendas. Passed-down information can lose relevant bits. What was once fact has since been overturned by new evidence. Let’s look at them one by one. Problem 1: Research may not be objective Let’s say a lobby group wants to increase sales of lemonade. They fund research to find more reasons for you to drink lemonade. They pour squillions of dollars into their research, and amazingly enough, all that research comes to the same conclusion: lemonade has amazing health benefits. Of course, that’s not how the research is presented to you . The research is presented in an interesting, fact-driven way that makes you believe it. Given a slew of reasonable-sounding facts and a truckload of statistics, and most of us will change our perception . That’s not to say lobby groups are bad people. They’re just like you and me. We tell our kids to eat spinach because it will make them big and strong. Doesn’t matter if the spinach doesn’t actually have the nutrients to get kids big and strong. Doesn’t matter if we’ve cooked the goodness out of the spinach. The kids swallow the idea — and hopefully the spinach. We all present information in the best light. And when we add figures and facts, it becomes something written in stone. Except it’s not written in stone. It’s not cold, hard fact. It’s just one view, one presentation of the data. Problem 2: Hand-me down facts Use tea bags to polish hardwood floors. Mix turmeric and honey in hot water and drink it for a cough. Use the underside of a ceramic mug to put an edge on that dull kitchen knife. These are hand-me down facts. They work — but do they work just the way they’re written? Did the author leave out a piece of critical information in the re-telling? Perhaps you have to steep the tea bags for a certain amount of time. Maybe you have to be careful to get the exact correct angle between your knife and that ceramic mug. Facts often develop holes over time. As stories get handed down, they lose information. The main part of the story may be true, but misleading without key pieces of information that go with it. The only way to be sure it to check for yourself. You take those tea bags and polish a part of your hardwood floor. If the floors shine, you’ve got a personal story of your own to tell. Hand-me-down data looks valid, but unless you’ve proved it yourself, you’re quoting unproven research. And that takes us to the final problem: The data keeps changing. Problem 3: Facts evolve As recently as 1980, most neuroscientists would tell you with confidence that the brain had no meaningful plasticity. Plasticity means that the brain is adaptable. That it can heal damage from strokes, accidents, and other horrible things, and that it can change and adapt after the critical period of childhood. There’s now research (yeah, I’m aware of the irony in referencing research in this article) that all areas of the brain can change and evolve even in adulthood. Destroyed function can be “re-routed” to other areas of the brain. And intense mental activity (like studying for med school exams) can change the brain in measurable ways in a matter of weeks. I want you to understand one thing: these original nay-sayers were neuroscientists. They live, breathe, and map their entire careers around research about how the brain works. Some of the smartest people on the planet. And they were wrong. Today, neuroplasticity is an irrefutable fact. But who’s to know what will come around the corner? Does this mean you shouldn’t research your articles? Not at all. Research matters. Facts matter. All I’m saying is that it isn’t necessary to spend all those hours tracking down facts. Often, the facts you find are only half-right, or they’re just a part of greater truths to be revealed. Go ahead and do your research, but put on an egg timer. If you don’t get what you’re looking for in about 20 minutes, it’s time to get your own facts together. Don’t make up facts that aren’t true, but tell us your own experience. It’s better to simply write what you know. Not only does it make for a good story , you can be secure that what you’re saying is really true. Research makes things interesting, but your own case studies are just as interesting. So don’t be bashful. Use your personal stories and experiences more often — you don’t need fifteen sources and two experts to back you up. You might be wrong Sure, you may be wrong about the way you interpret what you experience. The neuroscientists were wrong too. So were all the smart, educated people who insisted the world was flat. There have been countless geniuses who insisted on theories that would ultimately prove to be wrong. Research won’t save you from being wrong. It’ll just get in the way of telling your story — and that’s more important than having irrefutable facts. Especially because the facts are never irrefutable. No matter how much research you do. About the Author: Sean D’Souza offers a great free report on ‘Why Headlines Fail’ when you subscribe to his Psychotactics Newsletter . Be sure to check out his blog , too.

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Forex Bliss Formula

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Feature Product Review:Forex Bliss Formula, released on the 14th of July, 2010, is one of the newest Forex trading product doing rounds in the market. Jimmy Robinson is the author of the product. Jimmy revealed the strategies he has been successfully using over years to make money out of the Forex trading business. He has

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Forex Bliss Formula

Introducing GuestBlogging.com (Check out the Free Videos)

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So, you’ve heard my take on why guest blogging is important . Over the years, you’ve probably seen other popular bloggers talking about it too. But maybe you can’t help thinking … how does it help you build a popular blog of your own ? If you’ve been wondering, head over to GuestBlogging.com , because over the next 10 days, I’m going to show you. We’ll talk about: How to get your first 1000 blog subscribers, even if none of the leaders in your niche know who you are yet How to stop getting ignored by popular bloggers and get the links you deserve How to build a following on twitter to help you promote your blog posts How to get your blog a first page ranking on Google, without knowing all of the technical details of SEO Didn’t know guest blogging could help you do all of that? I didn’t either, when I first started. Over the years though, I’ve gotten to see some pretty powerful examples, and so I decided to make some videos for you and share them with you on Guestblogging.com . Here’s how it’ll work: Every few days, I’ll release a new video that walks you through real-world examples and strategies for how you can use guest blogging to build a popular blog. Right now, only the first video is available, but opt in, and I’ll e-mail you as I post new ones. As of right now, there’s nothing for sale. The videos are 100% content, no sales or marketing messages at all. When we’re done with them, I will tell you about a new training program I’m creating specifically for bloggers who are serious about increasing their traffic. But that’s at least a week or so away. For now, enjoy the free videos, and learn about all of the cool ways guest blogging can help you. Click here to get started. See you there! About the Author: Jon Morrow is the Associate Editor of Copyblogger and the Founder of GuestBlogging.com . Get more from him on twitter .

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We’re Taking the Summer Off…

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Well, not the whole summer. But we are giving ourselves a break. We spend a lot of time teaching people how to build smart, sustainable businesses with content. The kind of businesses that give us enough free time to have some decent work-life balance. After all, working your own schedule, to suit your own life, is one of the biggest benefits of running a business, right? Then it occurred to us — hm, maybe we should take some of our own advice. Many folks in the U.S. are taking today off for the Independence Day holiday, and we’re going to join them. And tomorrow we start our official summer schedule. We’ll post three terrific articles a week: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Then from Thursday through Sunday, enjoy a long summer weekend. Go for a bike ride, have lunch with friends, go to the zoo with your kids, maybe throw in a picnic or two. Yes, continue to work on and grow your business . But balance that out with all the other great stuff in your life. In other words, have a terrific summer — we only get so many of them. (Special note for our readers in Australia, where it is currently winter. Um, sorry. Maybe go for some relaxing sleigh rides on the beach?) Already pining for your Copyblogger fix? Feed your addiction by subscribing to the free Internet Marketing for Smart People newsletter. It’s all the cutting-edge marketing advice you’ve been craving, delivered hot and fresh to your email in-box. Even if you live in Australia. About the Author : Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication .

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We’re Taking the Summer Off…