Blogging about clients: Ethical dilemma

Blogging about your clients and their businesses is an ethical dilemma faced by many business bloggers.



Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion has brought that problem and possible conflict of interest to the forefront.



His concern is that on blog client discussion...

...is certainly a polarizing issue among at least the PR bloggers and worthy of an ongoing discussion.

Steve is correct.



Some bloggers strong disapprove of mentioning clients in a blog post.



Other bloggers support the idea of providing real world examples, from the business client base, if the information and experience gained, is helpful for other businesses.



Still other bloggers support the idea of mentioning clients, provided that full disclosure of the business relationship is included in the post. Along with that disclosure is its companion concern of letting the client know their business was discussed on a publicly available blog.



As most of my readers already know, I support the idea of a blogger's right to choose their topics and subject matter. If they choose to discuss clients publicly, that is their right to do so.



Should a blogger elect to not mention clients by name, that should also be their privilege.



As all of you know, I rarely discuss my clients at all. I do mention that I provide freelance articles for SEO Chat on topics ranging from search engine optimization to internet marketing to business blogging. I have a link to SEO Chat, and to My SEO Chat Articles Page, on my Resources section.



Strictly speaking, SEO Chat is not a client, but a buyer of my articles. Regardless of the exact business relationship, I always try to mention that fact in my posts, when the company and website are mentioned.



I have never blogged about my search engine optimization clients. That is not to say that I wouldn't do so in the future, with complete disclosure. It simply says that I haven't mentioned them up until now.



Instead of being concerned about discussing clients on a public forum, perhaps a better approach to garnering them some publicity would be the use of other channels.



Sending press releases to the media, adding links to internet directories on your client's behalf, and offering them search engine optimization and search engine marketing advice, might be a better route. Of course, in all cases, you want to ensure that you have your client's full permission.



Permission from a client to appear on a blog would also be an important step, and a courtesy to the client as well.



If you do decide to mention clients and customers on your blog, the most important thing for your readers is to tell them about the business relationship.



Up front.



Permission from your customers and clients to be subjects for your blog should also be secured prior to posting.



By taking care of everyone's potential concerns in advance, some unpleasantries after the fact, can be avoided.