September 14, 2016 | less than a minute read

Fight Back Ghost-Produced Thoughts

Passle

A fascinating article by former ghost-writer Aimee Millwood on the perils of hiring ghostwriters. As Millwood puts it, 'companies paid people like me to write content in subjects we had no expertise on'.

Understandably, churning out high volumes of terrible content was not something Millwood enjoyed doing. The content existed to fulfill a content marketing strategy but to what result? It produced ill-informed fluff pieces that are indistinguishable to other ill-informed fluff pieces littering the internet.

Content marketing's selling point is that it helps differentiate you from other companies in a crowded market. You do this by creating relevant, informative, and entertaining content aimed at your audience.

Ghostwriting, with few exceptions, does not do that.

What if we told you there was a way to create both quantity and quality? Get your experts in your business to create the content - don't outsource it.

Sounds easier said than done, and that's why Passle exists. To make it easy and done.

The only way we can return to an equilibrium where high-quality, well-researched content rises to the surface is when there is a system in place to keep content creators and distributors accountable. Just as scrupulous fact checking and an emphasis on unbiased reporting cemented authenticity and authority in journalism, so too online content needs a system to keep it honest to itself. Companies need to adopt a strict no-ghostwriting policy and give freelancers due credit. Until then, web content is at risk for being a black market for something much worse than ghostwritten articles: ghost-produced thoughts.