Why Are Advisors So Confused About The Right Way To Write A Blog? Hot

 

One advisor called to ask permission to re-post a blog that was written by Josh Patrick, one of our bloggers here on A4A. The post offered ideas for business owners.

 

The advisor wanted to just copy and paste the post from A4A onto his blog and then give a credit to Patrick. He thought the original post was great and simply wanted to reuse it. Giving credit to Patrick.

 

It’s good that he called and asked permission, rather than violating copyright laws and plagiarizing.  But re-posting someone else’s content is not a very good way of creating content for your blog.

 

A better way is to write a post that reacts to original post. You can choose to link to the original post or not. But what you need to do is make your own post.

 

Sure, this is harder to do than copying and pasting but it is a much better way to create content for your blog.

 

In this case, that is especially true because Josh Patrick is also an advisor, and he actually competes in the same niche as the advisors who wanted to re-post his content.

 

Re-posting content that is written by an advisor who is in the same niche as you is just a bad idea. If I were a consumer who happened on the re-posted blog entry and thought it was great, I would seek out the original writer because he’s actually the expert.

 

There is nothing wrong with referencing competitors and even linking to their content. But you don’t want to post their content on your blog and refer people to them.

 

If you write your own post agreeing or disagreeing with original post, then you can claim full authorship. If you copy extensively from another post, link to it. Being intellectually honest and doing the right thing always pays off on the long run.

 

The other person I spoke with yesterday about his blog was also making a basic mistake. He was tweeting our links to articles and then posting the tweets to his blog.

 

For the record, a tweet is not a blog.

 

Simply filling in the blog with your reaction to the post would be preferred. Should only take you a few minutes to write a paragraph or two explaining why you like or dislike the linked information.

 

Generally, posting information about something you disagree with or is less helpful than writing about ideas you embrace and want to pass on. Linking to an article and pointing out why it is wrongheaded is not as helpful to people as providing them constructive advice and ideas.

 

Your blog should be a hub on the Web for you and your firm. It is a central content distribution point. Leverage blog posts by tweeting out links to them on Twitter and LinkedIn. Use tools on Facebook and LinkedIn to embed your blog posts automatically on your profile pages. Comment on blogs that might be read by prospects that you target with your blog and link to blog posts you’ve written that they might find helpful.