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7-Figure Small with Brian Clark
Confessions of a Pink-Haired Marketer
Copyblogger FM: Content Marketing, Copywriting, Freelance Writing, and Social Media Marketing
Get More Clients With Smarter Email Marketing
Hack the Entrepreneur
Members Only
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Site Success: Tips for Building Better WordPress Websites
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Technology Translated
The Digital Entrepreneur
The Missing Link
The Showrunner
The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience
Youpreneur with Chris Ducker
Zero to Book
Copyblogger FM: Content Marketing, Copywriting, Freelance Writing, and Social Media Marketing
hosted by Darrell Vesterfelt and Tim Stoddart

Ethics, Professionalism, and Good Manners for Content Marketers

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Previous Episode:3 Questions that Can Haunt Creative Professionals More Episodes Next Episode:How to Handle Demographic and Psychographic Segmentation (without Looking Like an Idiot)

All Episodes:

March 30, 2020

The Advantage of Email Marketing, Featuring Nathan Barry of ConvertKit

March 15, 2020

How to Write Content That Resonates

March 9, 2020

How to Conquer Your Fear of Selling, with Leah Neaderthal

March 2, 2020

How to Build Remarkable Products to Grow Your Business, with Ramit Sethi

February 17, 2020

What You Should Talk about on Your Podcast, with Tara McMullin

February 9, 2020

How to Win at Search in 2020

February 3, 2020

How to Turn Pro as a Freelance Writer

January 27, 2020

Marketing Segmentation and Personalization with Brennan Dunn of RightMessage

January 20, 2020

Podcasting Still Matters, with Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income

January 13, 2020

The New Look Copyblogger in 2020

January 8, 2020

New Year, New Copyblogger

October 23, 2019

The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur with John Jantsch

October 2, 2019

Consistency Will Take You Further

September 25, 2019

The Past, Present, and Future of Online Learning

September 16, 2019

How to Get More of the Right Things Done

September 9, 2019

Why the Future Is Still Email

September 3, 2019

What’s Next for
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August 26, 2019

How Smart, Nimble Companies Are Using Webinars Today

August 19, 2019

The Clarity Method: A Conversation with Tim Brownson

August 12, 2019

Digital Business Trends and the Latest on the Rainmaker Platform

August 5, 2019

4 ‘Naive’ Business Principles for Enduring Success

July 8, 2019

How to Write an Epic Blog Post, Part 3: Polishing and Promotion

July 1, 2019

How to Write an Epic Blog Post, Part 2: Getting It Written

June 24, 2019

How to Write an Epic Blog Post, Part 1: Thinking and Research

June 17, 2019

3 Almost Magical Headline Ingredients for More Traffic, Engagement, and Shares

June 10, 2019

Lessons Any Business Can Learn from an Impressive Influencer Marketing Fail

June 3, 2019

13 Ways of Looking at a Headline

May 27, 2019

The 7 ‘Bad’ Habits of Incredibly Successful People

May 20, 2019

Writers: How to Move from Making a Living to Driving Revenue

May 13, 2019

Choose the Right Frame to Boost the Power of Your Content

May 6, 2019

How Copywriting Teacher Belinda Weaver Reenergized Her Email List for Massive Engagement

April 29, 2019

3 Reasons Why Really Good Writers Sometimes Can’t Find Great Clients

April 22, 2019

3 Slightly Embarrassing Emotions that Drive Effective Copywriting

April 15, 2019

Get 10 Content Marketing Boosters in 20 Minutes

April 8, 2019

Becoming the ‘Chief Empathy Officer’ of Your Copy and Content

April 1, 2019

One of the Most Important Marketing Decisions You’ll Ever Make

March 18, 2019

What Nobody Wants to Hear about Content Marketing

March 11, 2019

Getting Your Big, Scary Projects Finished: A Conversation about Growing Gills

March 4, 2019

When Is It Time to Bring in a Professional Copywriter?

February 25, 2019

Using Content to Systematically Move Prospects Toward a Purchase

February 18, 2019

Understanding the Lifecycles of Your Website, with Pamela Wilson

February 11, 2019

5 Ways to Manage a Stress-Induced Creative Slump

February 4, 2019

3 Ways Strategic Content Can Drive Measurable Business Outcomes

January 28, 2019

The Social Media Platform Every Content Creator Should Be Using in 2019 (Nope, It’s Not Facebook)

January 21, 2019

Real Talk about Generating High-Quality Content

January 14, 2019

A Conversation with Paul Jarvis about Staying a ‘Company of One’

October 29, 2018

The 3 Plus 1 Foundational Elements of Effective Persuasion

October 22, 2018

5 Essential Copywriting Techniques from Copyblogger

October 15, 2018

5 Ways to Recover Your Professional and Creative Confidence

October 8, 2018

5 Stinky Sardine Secrets to Make Your Content More Fascinating

September 24, 2018

The Mindset ‘Hack’ that Frees Your Creativity and Makes You Happier

September 18, 2018

How to Kill Your Sales and Mess up Your Business: Lessons from a Used Car Salesman

September 4, 2018

The 7 Things Writers Need to Make a (Good) Living

August 27, 2018

Are You Making These Social Media Marketing Mistakes?

August 20, 2018

Fix These 7 About Page Mistakes for More Traffic and (Possibly) Better SEO

August 13, 2018

7 Ways to Boost Your Creativity

August 6, 2018

A 10-Step ‘Checklist’ for Your Content Marketing Site

July 30, 2018

The 3 Keys to Publishing Strong Content … Even If You Aren’t a ‘Great’ Writer (Yet)

July 23, 2018

Fix These 3 Points of Failure to Get Better Results for Your Content

July 16, 2018

Big Changes at ConvertKit: A Discussion with Founder Nathan Barry

July 9, 2018

3 Skills to Master to Become a Marketing Badass this Year

June 18, 2018

The Quiet Power of Conversational Copy

June 11, 2018

5 Rules of Thumb to Relieve SEO-Induced Stress

June 4, 2018

How to Use the GDPR to Make Your Business Stronger than Ever

May 14, 2018

‘Good Karma’ Selling that Works: A Conversation with Tim Paige

April 30, 2018

How to Get More Comfortable (and Effective) at Selling

April 23, 2018

Privacy and Permission in the Wake of Cambridge Analytica

April 16, 2018

Seth Godin and How to Create Change

April 9, 2018

Email? Chatbots? Social? How Are We Supposed to Reach People?

March 26, 2018

The Double-Edged Sword that Can Make (or Break) Your Content

March 19, 2018

Make More Progress by Getting (Gently) Out of Your Comfort Zone

March 12, 2018

Are You Doing Content Marketing Wrong?

March 5, 2018

Storytelling for Modern Content Marketing (Part 2 of 2)

February 26, 2018

Storytelling for Modern Content Marketing (Part 1 of 2)

February 19, 2018

10 Quality Factors Search Engines Need to See on Your Site

February 12, 2018

A Simple Content Strategy to Make Your Site Massively More Useful

February 5, 2018

How to Avoid a Heartbreaking Business Failure

January 29, 2018

Hey Writers: Let’s Get You Paid What You’re Worth

January 15, 2018

5 Keys to Making Your Content More Shareable

December 18, 2017

3 Observations on Trends (but not Predictions) for 2018

December 11, 2017

3 Tips Now to Build a Strong Foundation in 2018

December 4, 2017

The 3 Success Factors that Help Writers Earn a Great Living

November 27, 2017

How to Recognize a Great Content Idea

November 20, 2017

How to Cultivate a More Meaningful Gratitude Practice

November 13, 2017

Advice for Poets, Advice for Killers

October 30, 2017

Face Your Business Fears on Halloween Week

October 23, 2017

How to Make Smarter Decisions about Your Website

October 2, 2017

A Series of Unfortunate Content Events

September 18, 2017

The Evolution of a Successful Copywriter

August 28, 2017

7 Ways to Improve Your Marketing by Harnessing the Power of Evil

August 14, 2017

Smart Questions from our Brilliant Audience

August 7, 2017

Does the Web Have Enough Patience for Your In-Depth Content?

July 31, 2017

How to Write (Much Better) Blog Comments

July 17, 2017

Which Works Better: Positive or Negative Content?

July 10, 2017

How to Attract the Exact Customers You Want

July 3, 2017

How to Create Stability and Success as an Artist

June 19, 2017

Two Powerful Resources for Life-Changing Growth

June 12, 2017

How to Turn All that Marketing Advice into Action

June 5, 2017

How to Develop a Compelling Marketing Idea in 4 Steps

May 30, 2017

Getting Over the Fear of Selling

May 22, 2017

Talking Community and Digital Business with Tara Gentile

May 15, 2017

Plagiarism, Self-Deception, Bad Sandwiches, and Other Interesting Disasters

May 1, 2017

Professional Writers: Find Out How to Get Certified by Copyblogger

April 17, 2017

The Painful Core Lesson Taught by 3 Astonishing Big-Brand Fails

April 3, 2017

5 Mindset Habits that Actually Work

March 27, 2017

On Grammar, Usage, and Not Being a Great Big Jerk

March 20, 2017

Creative Strategies for Content Writers

March 13, 2017

A New Ultra-Easy Resource for Creating Excellent WordPress Sites

February 20, 2017

Thriving Freelancers and Clients from Hell

February 13, 2017

Politics, Content Marketing, and the 2017 Super Bowl Ads

February 6, 2017

Copyblogger Book Club: Winning the Story Wars

January 23, 2017

3 Content Marketing Strategy Fails (and How to Fix Them)

January 9, 2017

The 2017 Content Excellence Challenge: Your January Assignments

December 19, 2016

Bad Writing Advice: The ‘Post Truth’ Episode

December 12, 2016

Get Ready Now for a Creative and Productive 2017

December 5, 2016

The 4 Pillars Every Online Business Is Built On

November 28, 2016

Orbit Media’s Latest Survey of 1000 Bloggers

November 14, 2016

Have You Already Missed the Podcasting Gold Rush?

November 7, 2016

Getting More Traffic, Links, and Shares to Your Content

October 31, 2016

5 Quick Wins for Content Marketers

October 24, 2016

Announcing: An Intriguing New Tool for Collaborative Content

October 17, 2016

A New Book to Make Content Marketing Easier

October 10, 2016

Behind the Scenes at Copyblogger: Our New Email Approach

October 3, 2016

The ‘Obligatory’ Structure of Effective Content

September 26, 2016

7 Powerful Content Strategies Borrowed from Advertising Masters

September 15, 2016

How to Handle Demographic and Psychographic Segmentation (without Looking Like an Idiot)

September 8, 2016

Ethics, Professionalism, and Good Manners for Content Marketers

September 1, 2016

3 Questions that Can Haunt Creative Professionals

August 25, 2016

How to Give and Get Exceptional Testimonials, Part Two

August 18, 2016

How to Give and Get Exceptional Testimonials, Part One

August 11, 2016

Are You Leaving Money on the Table with Weak Headlines?

August 4, 2016

Content Marketing for Nonprofits

July 28, 2016

The One-Two Punch that Creates the Most Successful Copywriters

July 21, 2016

Pokémon Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

July 14, 2016

5 Suggestions When You’re Writing About Controversy

July 7, 2016

Announcing: A Breakthrough Educational Collaboration between Copyblogger and U.C. Davis

June 30, 2016

How to Break Past the #1 Conversion Killer

June 23, 2016

The New Age of Marketing Automation: Powerful, Simple, Cost-Effective

June 16, 2016

How to Make a (Really Good) Living as a Freelance Writer

June 9, 2016

Self-Publishing, Side Hustles, and Doing It All: A Conversation with Linda Formichelli

June 2, 2016

A Process for Content Marketing Success

May 26, 2016

Content Marketing Best Practices: Getting Email Opt-Ins

May 19, 2016

Behind the Scenes: Adventures in Advertising

May 12, 2016

Trump, Apple, and Facebook Advertising: Content Marketing News for May, 2016

May 5, 2016

Sally Hogshead and the Art of Fascination

April 28, 2016

Behind the Scenes at the Rainmaker Digital Company Meeting!

April 14, 2016

Social Media News, Social Media Constants

April 7, 2016

Strategies for B2B Podcasting, with Clark Buckner

March 31, 2016

Content Marketing Success Stories: Fitness Powerhouse Examine.com

March 24, 2016

Behind the Scenes: An Inside Look at the Rainmaker FM Redesign

March 17, 2016

Our Latest Advice and Resources for Digital Business Owners

March 10, 2016

Should Content Publishers Adopt Google’s New AMP?

March 3, 2016

7 Ways to Get Smarter with Social Media Listening

February 25, 2016

Content Marketing Shout-Out: Orbit Media and Andy Crestodina

February 18, 2016

The Tactic You Should Steal from Copyblogger

February 11, 2016

Content Marketing News for February, 2016

February 4, 2016

Email Marketing: The Misunderstood Powerhouse

January 28, 2016

The Secret Weapon Behind Great Websites: The Role of the Content Editor

January 21, 2016

Behind the Scenes: The Relaunch and Re-Imagining of Copyblogger.com

January 14, 2016

Trends and Predictions for Digital Commerce: A Conversation with Brian Clark

January 7, 2016

2016 Content Marketing Resolutions

December 28, 2015

The End of The Lede, The Beginning of Copyblogger FM

November 10, 2015

Constraints Can Be Blessings (Plus 2 Other Essential Lessons Jerod Re-Learned This Week)

November 3, 2015

Long or Short? The Content Length Question Answered, Once and For All

October 27, 2015

The Simple Publishing Hack That Gives Old Content New Life (Plus 3 More Tips)

October 20, 2015

The Surprising Truth about Earning a Profit from Your Content

October 13, 2015

How to Move Your Audience From Infatuation to Love

October 6, 2015

3 Things Your Audience Wants You to Know about Useful Content

September 29, 2015

Revisiting Authenticity: What It Is, What It’s Not, and Why It Matters

September 22, 2015

Publishing Lessons from Dave Pell, the Most Fascinating Email Newsletter Writer in the Business

September 15, 2015

Why Content Creators Should Kiss Their Programmers

September 8, 2015

Finally — A Podcast about the Superiority of Written Content

September 1, 2015

Hot Seat: Grilling Jerod on Using Audio Content to Seed a Content Arsenal

August 25, 2015

How to Optimize Your Headlines for Content Discovery with Vinegar (Before You Die of Cholera)

August 18, 2015

5 Stories That Explain Jerod Morris (Plus One Massive Marketing Lesson)

August 11, 2015

Lede Potpourri: A Big Idea, Talking About Demian Behind His Back, and Lessons from #PM15

August 4, 2015

How to Attend an Industry Conference Like a Boss

July 28, 2015

Getting the Most Out of a Conference When You’re There to Promote, Part 1

July 21, 2015

How Much Does the Modern Content Marketer Need to Know About SEO?

July 14, 2015

Are Podcasters Digitally Sharecropping Without Realizing It?

July 7, 2015

Celebrating Our 101st Episode (with a Special Guest Interviewer)

June 30, 2015

Why The Phrase ‘Leaders Are Readers’ Should Die

June 23, 2015

Why You Should Think Outside the Box About Online Courses

June 16, 2015

The Proper (and Safe) Way to Republish Old Articles

June 9, 2015

How to Grow an Audience on LinkedIn by Repurposing Content

June 2, 2015

Key Takeaways from Three-and-a-Half Hours with Henry Rollins

May 27, 2015

Rapid-Fire Takeaways from Authority Rainmaker

May 19, 2015

The Proper Way to Grow an Audience on Medium

May 12, 2015

The Introvert’s Guide to Launching a Successful Podcast

May 5, 2015

The One Quality All Popular Podcasts Share

April 28, 2015

Proof That Grit Is the Only Way to Reach Your Potential

April 21, 2015

Do We Celebrate Failure Too Much?

April 14, 2015

Choose Yourself Part 2: James Altucher Fights Back

April 7, 2015

Should We Fear Content Shock? (Or Could It Actually Be a Good Thing?)

March 31, 2015

Should You Really ‘Walk in the Direction of Your Fear’?

March 24, 2015

Is ‘Choose Yourself’ Good Advice … or New-Age Phooey?

March 17, 2015

Is Authority Earned or Bestowed?

March 3, 2015

Dan Pink on How to Succeed in the New Era of Selling

February 24, 2015

Here’s How to Answer the Most Important Question in Life (and Make a Living from It)

February 17, 2015

Sally Hogshead on How You Can Unlock Your Natural Ability to Fascinate

February 10, 2015

How to Learn from Your Successes

January 27, 2015

How to Learn From Your Mistakes

January 13, 2015

Lessons Learned from Conducting Two Monster Audience Surveys

December 16, 2014

Adaptive Content: A Trend to Pay Attention to in 2015

December 2, 2014

The Most Important Lessons You Should Have Learned in 2014

November 18, 2014

How We Built Our Careers Online (And What You Can Learn From It)

November 4, 2014

Interview with Brian Clark: How Customer Experience Maps Help You Develop a Smarter Content Strategy

October 21, 2014

How Empathy Maps Help You Speak Directly to the Hearts of Your Audience

October 7, 2014

How to Ignite a Feeling in Your Audience

September 23, 2014

Are You Overlooking This Cornerstone of a Smart Content Strategy?

June 26, 2014

How to Curate Knowledge, Turn it Into Wisdom, and Build Your Audience

June 19, 2014

How Successful Writers Curate Ideas

June 13, 2014

The 5 W’s of Link Curation

June 6, 2014

Why You Should Curate Content (And How to Do It Right)

May 30, 2014

How Freaks and Misfits Can Succeed in Business: A Conversation with Chris Brogan

May 23, 2014

The 2 Reasons People Don’t Click on Your Buttons … And How to Overcome Them

May 16, 2014

Chase Customers, Not Clicks

May 9, 2014

How to Be Authentic

May 2, 2014

How to Close With Style

April 25, 2014

The Best of Seth Godin on Copyblogger

April 17, 2014

How to Choose Arresting Images for Your Blog Posts (And Why You Should)

April 11, 2014

Removing Blog Comments: The View So Far

April 4, 2014

How to Use Internal Cliffhangers

March 28, 2014

Hangout Hot Seat with Brian Clark

March 21, 2014

How to Tell a Seductive Story

March 14, 2014

How to Create Exquisite Subheads

March 7, 2014

How to Write Killer Bullet Points

February 28, 2014

How to Write Damn Good Sentences

February 21, 2014

How to Use Persuasive Words

February 14, 2014

Michael Stelzner on Capturing Emails and Committing to Quality

February 7, 2014

How to Nail Your Opening

January 24, 2014

How to Write a Magnetic Headline (in Under 15 Minutes)

May 18, 2012

Seth Godin on When You Should Start Marketing Your Product, Service, or Idea

May 11, 2012

How to Attract an Audience by Integrating Content, Social, and Search

March 30, 2012

Why You Should Build an Audience Before You Build a Business

March 16, 2012

How Chris Brogan Built His Content Platform

March 9, 2012

Jay Baer on How to Turn Interested Prospects into Lifelong Customers

March 2, 2012

A 30-Minute Copywriting Course from a Master of the Craft

February 24, 2012

The Path to a Legendary Copywriting Career

February 17, 2012

5 Tips for Affiliate Marketing Beginners

February 10, 2012

Why Not Sell Physical Stuff With Digital Media?

February 3, 2012

Whether You Call it Blogging or Not, Online Content Still Rules

January 27, 2012

Answers to the 3 Biggest Email Marketing Questions We Get

January 20, 2012

How to Newsjack Your Way to Free Media Exposure with David Meerman Scott

January 13, 2012

Steven Pressfield and the War of Work

November 18, 2011

The Strategy Behind the Copyblogger Redesign

November 11, 2011

7 Ways to Create an Email Marketing "Snowball Effect"

November 4, 2011

Warning: If You're Not a Privacy Nut, You're Losing Sales

October 28, 2011

The 3 Kinds of Writing That Builds a Business

October 21, 2011

The Art of Seductive Writing: A Conversation with Robert Greene

October 7, 2011

Why Content Marketing Doesn't Suck

September 30, 2011

Are You Weird Enough to Succeed at Content Marketing?

September 23, 2011

What Works With SEO Right Now and Why No One Does What You Want

September 16, 2011

Are You Flushing Your Marketing Down the Social Media Toilet?

September 11, 2011

Seth Godin on Blogging, Business Books, and Creating Content that Matters

September 2, 2011

The Return of Copyblogger Radio …

June 10, 2011

Answered: Your Most Burning Content Marketing Questions

June 3, 2011

How to Get All the Clients and Customers You Can Handle

May 20, 2011

Is Content Marketing Worth the Work?

May 13, 2011

How to Write Nearly Undeletable Emails

May 6, 2011

Is the Online Gold Rush Over?

April 22, 2011

The Art of Enchanting Online Marketing with Guy Kawasaki

April 15, 2011

The Market for Something to Believe in is Infinite: An Interview with Hugh MacLeod

April 8, 2011

How to Constantly Create Compelling Content

March 25, 2011

The Content Marketing Question You Need to Answer … Now

March 18, 2011

Good SEO is Simple. Really.

March 4, 2011

Did Social Media Kill the Marketing Star?

February 25, 2011

How to Write (and Execute) a Simple but Powerful Business Plan

February 17, 2011

How to Kick Groupon to the Curb and Become a Local Hero

February 3, 2011

Convert … Or Die

January 27, 2011

Attention: Is Your Headline Getting Any?

January 20, 2011

How to Craft Landing Pages that Work

January 13, 2011

Why Every Smart Business is in the Media Business

January 5, 2011

2011 Content Marketing Predictions

December 15, 2010

Tim Ferriss on How to Reinvent Yourself with Blog Marketing

December 8, 2010

The 6 Elements of an Influential Web Experience

December 1, 2010

Your Staggeringly Unfair Marketing Advantage

November 17, 2010

How to Get Some Action

November 10, 2010

The Foundation of All Marketing that Works

November 3, 2010

Introducing Copyblogger Radio

September 8, 2016

Ethics, Professionalism, and Good Manners for Content Marketers

There’s a lot of great content out there … and then there’s the topic of today’s podcast. Sonia looks at the good, the bad, and the ugly.

There are two kinds of people. Some folks do the right thing for its own sake, and some because the other option has negative consequences.

This one’s for both types.

In this 20-minute episode, Sonia Simone talks about:

  • Plagiarism, content theft, and how to use someone else’s material ethically
  • Considerations when content marketing touches on serious news
  • Great news for people worried about the world discovering they’re not perfect
  • Some elements of a good apology
  • Thoughts on whether or not content creators should wade into hot-button conversations
  • A widespread bad habit I’d love us to work on quitting

Listen to Copyblogger FM: Content Marketing, Copywriting, Freelance Writing, and Social Media Marketing below ...

Ethics, Professionalism, and Good Manners for Content MarketersSonia Simone
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The Show Notes

  • A nice classic post from Brian Clark on How to Steal Great Content Ideas — without, of course, resorting to plagiarism 🙂
  • A great way to ethically use other people’s content is the curation model — Brian Clark and Pamela Wilson share an infographic with you here: Do You Have What it Takes to Publish a Curated Email Newsletter?
  • The excellent site Sorrywatch, with examples of terrible apologies (and advice on how to do them well).
  • If you need a real attorney (not the Facebook kind) for advice on your content, I’m a fan of Rachel Rodgers. She’s smart and she understands business issues as well as the legal ones.
  • Ethical, effective, and strategic content marketers hang out in the Authority community. Great advanced content, a great community, and answers to your individual business questions. Hop in now before we increase the price! Learn more about the Authority premium community for content marketers.
  • I’m always happy to see your questions or your thoughts on Twitter @soniasimone (or you can always drop a question right here in the comments!)

The Transcript

Ethics, Professionalism, and Good Manners for Content Marketers

Jerod Morris: Hey, Jerod Morris here. If you know anything about Rainmaker Digital and Copyblogger, you may know that we produce incredible live events. Well, some would say that we produce incredible live events as an excuse to throw great parties, but that’s another story. We’ve got another one coming up this October in Denver. It’s called Digital Commerce Summit, and it is entirely focused on giving you the smartest ways to create and sell digital products and services. You can find out more at Rainmaker.FM/Summit.

We’ll be talking about Digital Commerce Summit in more detail as it gets closer, but for now, I’d like to let a few attendees from our past events speak for us.

Attendee: 1 For me, it’s just hearing from the experts. This is my first industry event, so it’s awesome to learn new stuff and also get confirmation that we’re not doing it completely wrong where I work.

Attendee 2: The best part of the conference for me is being able to mingle with people and realize that you have connections with everyone here. It feels like LinkedIn Live. I also love the parties after each day, being able to talk to the speakers, talk to other people who are here for the first time, people who have been here before.

Attendee 3: I think the best part of the conference for me is understanding how I can service my customers a little more easily. Seeing all the different facets and components of various enterprises then helps me pick the best tools.

Jerod Morris: Hey, we agree — one of the biggest reasons we host a conference every year is so that we can learn how to service our customers, people like you, more easily. Here are just a few more words from folks who have come to our past live events.

Attendee 4: It’s really fun. I think it’s a great mix of beginner information and advanced information. I’m really learning a lot and having a lot of fun.

Attendee 5: The conference is great, especially because it’s a single-track conference where you don’t get distracted by, “Which session should I go to?” and, “Am I missing something?”

Attendee 6: The training and everything, the speakers have been awesome, but I think the coolest aspect for me has been connecting with both people who are putting in on and then the other attendees.

Jerod Morris: That’s it for now. There’s a lot more to come on Digital Commerce Summit, and I really hope to see you there in October. Again, to get all the details and the very best deal on tickets, head over to Rainmaker.FM/Summit.

Sonia Simone: Hey there. It is good to see you again. Welcome back to Copyblogger FM, the content marketing podcast. Copyblogger FM is about emerging content marketing trends, interesting disasters, and enduring best practices, along with the occasional rant. My name is Sonia Simone. I’m the chief content officer for Rainmaker Digital, and I like to hang out with the folks who do the heavy lifting over on the Copyblogger blog.

You can always find additional links and or resources at the show notes, which you can get to at Copyblogger.FM. You’ll also find a complete archive for the show.

Today, I’m going to talk a little bit about ethics. I’m going to talk about good behavior and not so good behavior for content marketers. I’m just going to talk a little bit about doing the right thing, what I think the right thing is, in certain circumstances.

Not so much because I want to be your content marketing mom and wag my finger at you, although I do enjoy that from time to time, but just because you see things out there in the world of your profession and you see things that it would be more awesome if people did them differently. I thought I’d talk about a couple of those today.

There’s two kinds of people. Most people, in my experience, want to know more about these best practices because they’re the right thing to do. They don’t want to do something that’s unethical, inconsiderate, or doesn’t make their business better, doesn’t treat their audience well. Most people want to do the right thing because it’s the right thing. Some people want to do the right thing because the alternative has consequences.

Breaking rules, breaking ethical guidelines, has consequences. It has very real consequences, sometimes very significant consequences.

Two reasons to be a good guy, to be a good egg with your content — the first is because it’s just more fun to be a good person than a crummy person. The second is because the alternative may backfire on you and probably won’t work anyway.

Plagiarism, Content Theft, and How to Use Someone Else’s Material Ethically

Let’s get into the right and the wrong — or perhaps I should say, let’s get into the good, the bad, and the ugly. We’ve got to start … honestly, you just can’t talk about content without covering this right now, without talking about plagiarism and people stealing one another’s content.

Apparently, for some people, this is a complicated issue. It’s actually not that complicated. If you didn’t create it — if it’s not yours, you didn’t write those words, you didn’t take that photo, you didn’t draw that illustration — then it doesn’t belong to you. You can’t just use it like you did create it.

So no, you don’t just get to use it because it’s on the Internet.

Honestly, I think you guys are way too smart to fall for that, but I have to cover it because I see it so often. People just rip things. Facebook is just really bad right now for absolutely stolen content. This includes some large companies, especially with visual content, who are just ripping artists off from Instagram and from Pinterest and then presenting that work as their own for purchase.

It’s unethical. It’s the legal. It’s terrible.

Kind of related to that, attribution is not enough to cover you. You can’t just say, “Oh, this is who I stole this from.” That doesn’t really work. Now, you have to be aware on this topic of what I call a ‘Facebook lawyer,’ which is somebody who has absolutely no training in law, but they will tell you the law because they read a blog post somewhere.

People will say, “That’s fair use. This is fair use, and that’s fair use.” Fair use is more complex than people who are not lawyers, I am one of those people, imagine it to be. Just keep that in mind.

If somebody just tells you with great assurance that something is fair use, it may be or it may not be. If that person is not your attorney, I would take it with a grain of salt.

Very roughly, typically, you can use a little bit of something if you attribute it. The most common thing we use is a quote. I will quote from a book. I will quote from another person’s blog post, a sentence or two from somebody else’s writing, with attribution to illustrate a point. This is normal, natural, and reasonable. It works just fine.

Now, if this is in a paid product, the rules are different, and I want you to talk to your attorney. But if it’s just a piece of web-available blog content or a podcast, then normally that’s fine. A quote that’s a small sliver of the whole thing is normally totally okay.

Visual content and musical content, different rules. Different juries have ruled different things. That’s something that you want to ask somebody more expert in those realms than I am.

Really, if there’s any way that you can do it, and usually today there is, it’s just really excellent to ask permission if you possibly can, especially if you’re quoting from a blog or somebody’s Facebook page, something that they said on a Facebook page.

Of course, if it’s something that they said in a private group — for example, it’s an authority in your topic who made a post in a private group on Facebook or a private group in some other venue — ask before you use it. It’s a good idea. It’s smart, and it’ll keep you out of trouble.

Related to this, plagiarism is really about specific expressions of things — the specific drawing, the specific string of words. If you get an idea from another person, if someone’s said some idea and it really sparked your thinking, it’s just very good manners to credit that person when you talk about the idea. I always try to remember to do this.

Sometimes the idea is such a part of my brain that I forget where I got it. But whenever you can, whenever you can remember it, when you have an idea, something that sparks your thinking, sparks your own creative juices, always circle back and say, “I love this idea. This idea is very important to me, and I got it from this person.” Then credit that person.

It’s just being cool. It’s being a good guy, and it’s sharing the pool of knowledge in a way that’s beneficial. Plagiarism is the one where we’ve got really a right and wrong. Don’t steal things from other people because it’s really a terrible thing to do.

It’s All About Decorum

The rest of this is going to be more about what I would call decorum. It’s really more about behaving yourself in a way that communicates your authority, that communicates that you respect others within your community, respect others within your topic.

It’s just about being a good guy, a good person, and somebody who people can look up to, admire, and respect — and will want to do business with.

It’s not necessarily about right or wrong because that one’s tricky. Don’t kill anybody. Don’t steal things. True black and white, right and wrong is a little bit short list. This is more Sonia’s rules of don’t do things like this unless you want people to think you’re a total tool.

Considerations When Content Marketing Touches on Serious News

The first one, I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again because every time somebody steps in it … we saw it recently. Recently we lost Gene Wilder — wonderful actor, wonderful comic, gentle genius Gene Wilder — and within a couple of hours content marketers were using it to promote their completely unrelated businesses with Willy Wonka this, et cetera, et cetera.

As a content marketing professional, one of your rules, if I may suggest such a thing, is if somebody dies, don’t use that to sell stuff.

Sometimes this can actually get tricky and delicate because a tribute can sometimes be all right. If you are a musician and Prince dies, then it’s completely legit for you to have a Prince tribute concert where you play the music that meant so much to you. That’s normal, seemly, and fine. Again, for decorum’s sake, it’s usually good manners to donate the proceeds to some charity that would be relevant.

Where you cross the line into just looking like a tool is if you’re Office Depot and you offer 50 percent off cartridges of purple ink because Prince died. That’s just lame. It’s not relevant. It just looks like you’re trying to make a fast buck off of somebody else’s grief. That’s what we want to worry about.

The thing about this issue, and so many of the issues I’m going to talk about today, is it’s about how it’s taken, not necessarily how it’s meant.

You may be meaning it in a pure and good and wonderful way, and it’s just taken as being self-serving, as being opportunistic. You have to be willing to look at your own stuff and say, “I certainly didn’t mean it to be opportunistic … but I didn’t make a good call there, and I’m sorry,” and move on.

Very commonly, if you’re working with other people, there’s somebody on your team who’s really good at picking these up. A lot of times, distressing number of times, that person’s voice doesn’t get heard.

Hilarious, sad example recently I saw on Facebook, a magazine in Oklahoma put a picture of a baby on the cover of the magazine in a Wizard of Oz Tin Man costume. Regrettably, just the angle of the costume and the hat was really tall. It really, really looked like this baby was in a KKK outfit.

This is not good. We really don’t want to have this in our business, especially a print magazine, because you can’t just pretend it never happened. Not that you can on the web, either.

I promise you, somebody in that editorial office looked at that and said, “Guys, we cannot run that. That baby looks like a little grand master. This is horrible. Find a better picture,” and that person was ignored. So I want you to think about that. Whether it’s a little voice in your head or there’s somebody on your team, that person can be useful.

If you look at it and think, “You know, it’s not meant that way, but this could really be construed as being really racist, or really sexist, or really insensitive, or trying to be opportunistic about the death of somebody beloved,” if you’re questioning it and you’re second-guessing it, it’s probably best to find a choice that makes your intention much more clear.

Be clear about what you intend. All right, moving on.

Great News for People Worried About the World Discovering They’re Not Perfect (and Some Elements of a Good Apology)

Next thing I want to talk about is related to what I just said — which is do not try to cover things up and pretend they did not happen. We do this all the time on social media. There was a really rich one at the Oscars where somebody saw a picture of Whoopi Goldberg, and they thought it was Oprah Winfrey. They Tweeted about it, so this is not great. Then they just took the photo down and pretended it didn’t happen.

Well, tens of thousands of people are Tweeting about this, so the cat’s kind of out of the bag there. You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.

You are always, especially on the web where there are captures of things and people can use various tools to go back in time, but just really, frankly, in general, if you do something stupid, your best bet is to stand up and say, “Wow, was that stupid. I’m very embarrassed, and I just don’t … ”

Either if you know why it happened, say, “You know what, it happened because this situation existed, and this is what I’m doing so it won’t happen again.”

If you don’t know why it happened because you just had some crazy brain worm thing, then you say that. You say, “I don’t even know what happened there. I’m just terribly sorry,” and you’re done. You don’t need to flay yourself, but you do need to stand up and admit when you screw something up — because everybody screws things up.

So many people cover things up because they’re afraid that people are going to find out that we aren’t perfect. So I have some fantastic news for you: everybody already knows you’re not perfect. So you don’t even need to spend one more minute worrying about that. It’s covered. You’re cool. You can just fess up and move on.

There’s a wonderful website called SorryWatch that looks at terrible apologies and gives the architecture of good apologies. I will give you a link to that in the show notes. I’m pretty sure it’s SorryWatch.com, but I’ll check for you.

Thoughts on Whether or Not Content Creators Should Wade into Hot-Button Conversations

Here’s another one. I wouldn’t say this is an ethical issue. This is more of a civic-minded issue or a community-wellness issue. I would love more people to be more mindful about stirring the pot in heated conversations.

Before we get started, I am not telling you to water down your beliefs because I don’t believe in that.

I think you should stand up for what you believe in, and I think you should be clear about what you believe in. I’m not saying being mealy-mouthed or wimpy about your true deep-seated beliefs.

But what I am saying is that it is really awesome to be mindful, to really think about is this actually shedding light on the topic? Or is this just generating a lot of rage, a lot of crankiness, a lot of preaching to the choir, and a lot of emotional intensity — and not actually shedding any kind of light on any kind of situation or bringing any kind of coolness or analysis to the situation?

It’s sometimes called ‘outrage porn.’ I just think that term is really helpful when I see it. It’s something that is shared purely to create negative emotions in people. It doesn’t actually motivate anybody to do anything. There’s no call to action. There’s no request to take an action, like make a donation or write a letter to your Congressman.

It’s just about being outraged, and man, is it just polluting the discourse right now.

It is, of course, always especially intense around elections. The United States election season right now is … it’s always heated, and it’s like Mordor at the moment. It’s superheated. It is a volcanic lake of lava at the moment.

I’m not saying don’t be political. That’s up to you to decide if it’s valuable to you to be political in your content or not.

I am saying please try to think about sharing messages that call for action in a civil way, call for specific action, and try to enlighten people about why you think things should be different instead of just sputtering with outrage over how crummy things are.

It doesn’t really do anything other than just create a lot of anxiety. Actually, I think it keeps people from taking action because people are so overheated. That’s my two cents. You may see it differently, and that’s cool, too.

Be Mindful and Think Before You Speak

Quite closely related to this is my final thought on good behavior, bad behavior, potentially problematic behavior. Maybe it’s just a good thing to think and be mindful and consider and hold in your mind the possibility that we might not need every single thought right as it comes out of your head.

And I have seen this, somebody’s drunk, offensive rantings on Twitter. That’s not transparency. That’s just self-indulgence. Maybe just don’t do that. Maybe if you’re going to go out and get really hammered, use one of the self-control apps and just turn off your social media for the night.

Everyone will thank you in the morning, especially you.

A Widespread Bad Habit I’d Love for Us to Work on Quitting

Finally, I’ll just leave you with a little bit of my own peace, love, and granola. I think it’s one of the most important things we can do because we come into contact with so many different people now on the web, so many different kinds of people we never bumped into before, it matters a lot not to make people into un-people.

The ones who are opposite from you, whether it’s politics, religion, skin color, sexual orientation, whatever it is, the ones who are other — and it truly does not matter how you vote — almost all of us have some kind of group that it’s like, “Yeah, I believe in equality. I believe in justice, and I believe all people are equal, except for those people, ha, ha, ha.”

I’m really respectfully asking you to think about maybe not doing that.

You may have excellent evidence that those people are incorrect, that they’ve got their facts wrong. They may very well be on the wrong side of history. Quite possible, we’ll see how that goes.

Speaking out against ideas, speaking out against behavior, I think that’s totally fair game, but telling yourself that certain kinds of people who think a certain way, vote a certain way, that they are not really people, there’s nothing in a way that’s more natural to the human mind, but it is something that you can resist.

It is a bad habit that you can overcome, and I think it would be awesome if we all worked on that — and myself included. I’m not immune at all to such things. But I do try to let the better angels of my nature rule the day. I don’t always win, but I do my best.

All right, that’s it for today. That’s an assembly of suggestions, ethical recommendations, and just considerations on maybe how to be a good guy, a good gal on these Internets that we travel.

It’s always wonderful to be with you, to have your time and attention, and I will catch you next week. Take care. This is Sonia Simone with Copyblogger.FM.

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