The varying degrees of grey in blog ethics

Sharon Fernandes, September 14 2009

I’m Sharon, I’m new to SMG’s Influencer Outreach Practice. Now that we have that out of the way, a few words about ethics and transparency…

When it comes to conversations about ethics, it’s always interesting to me how grey areas can often be positioned as black and white. There are varying degrees of ethical behavior and so many factors that determine how an individual or company views a potentially ethically questionable situation. Perception and context being at the top of what sways someone in one direction or another.  What might beethically irresponsible to some consumers, might be completely harmless to others. What might have been seen as ethically appalling two years ago, might be absolutely kosher these days.

Who better to bring these discussions to the forefront than the folks on the Social Media Today’s Ethics of Blogging webinar. Shameless plug coming…wait for it…SMG’s very own Maggie Fox will be one of the experts examining trust between bloggers and readers! (SMG’s also a sponsor) See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?

Among the topics to be discussed:

• Transparency: How and when should a blogger reveal revenue sources?
• Pay for play: Blog posts, tweets, and more as marketing tools
• Online privacy
• Astroturfing: Organizations creating artificial “grassroots” campaigns
• Compliance and Legal: What should a corporate blog policy look like? What are a blogger’s legal obligations?

Join in the conversation and have your two cents heard by logging in to the webinar on Sept 24th at 1 pm ET (10 am PT) right here.