Ben, who has a great company in Standout Jobs suggested I make a guest post over at his blog.  His audience is primarily corporate recruiters, so I wrote about the importance of landing pages for corporate recruiters. 

Stop laughing.  I'm serious - internal recruiters have a harder time building an online profile, but if they incorporate landing pages for specific jobs, they can funnel candidates and still look like heroes. And the corporation benefits.

Head on over there to read it for yourself -and leave some comments!

I've ghost blogged.  It's only fair to admit it, but it's not something I do anymore.  When I first started social media consulting, I helped clients write posts as a way to get them started, but I quickly found out that once you start a service like that, they want you to keep going.

So I raised my prices far past what any person would pay for it, and switched over to training people instead. The problem with Ghost blogging is two-fold.  One, it's dishonest.  If you're just using social media as a content management tool, there's no need to use your name to push out content.  If you're pretending to engage in conversations, well, just pray the other person doesn't really ever meet you.

The real problem is with the client.  If you're doing the writing and connecting, you're getting all of the value.  Short of the SEO advantages (which don't mitigate the risk of getting found out), ghost blogging robs the client of what they most need - introspection on their business and industry.

I think it happens by accident.  Companies want a blog, but don't want to do it themselves, so they turn to agencies and PR firms to do it for them.  The outsourced firms like money, and so they agree.  I don't see it lasting.  Most of the engagements I've seen, heard, recognized as ghost blogs fall off the map pretty quick.  Blogging takes more than just writing - you can get copywriters for that, but the interaction can't be faked long.  And when it is, it brings little value, that the company stops paying for.

For a stronger opinion, check out Sean Bohan, who if I may paraphrase him, says ghost bloggers should be doused in boiling pitch and set ablaze with printed copies of their blogposts.  I think I summarized that correctly. Let's let him do it.

Remember kiddies, just because a client will pay you for it, doesn't make it a good idea.