What you can learn from Spiderman about ethical content marketing
Our lives are full of choices. Whenever we choose, we decide against something else. We weigh out different possibilities and outcomes. Of course, it is not always easy to find out what’s the “best” or the “right” decision. That’s where ethics come into play.
According to Ethics.org.au, Ethics is the process of questioning, discovering, and defending values, principles, and purpose.
In a nutshell, ethics is a tool that can help to enhance the quality of decisions.
Any human decision involves the risk of cognitive bias.
Decision-making often requires a lot of brainpower. Consequently, our brain comes up with shortcuts for making decisions. These (often unconscious) shortcuts reduce the strain of making choices.
However, it’s where mistakes happen.
For example, only consuming information that confirms your own opinion (confirmation bias). Or relying heavily on the first piece of information that you consume (anchoring bias).
All the biases are explained in depth at betterup.com
The best strategies to avoid them are:
· Be aware of them
· Don’t automatically adopt other people’s attitude
· Figure out personal tendencies by looking at the past
· Developing a growth mindset
· Try looking at situations from different perspectives
Why are ethics important for our work as content professionals?
Our job is to draw attention to our products and services and ultimately, well, sell them. However, what we also need to realize is that our content has an impact on people.
Thanks to the internet our work gets commented on and shared, and even has the potential to go viral.
In the Course Governance of Content Systems by Rahel Bailie at Content Strategy Graz we touched on the topic of content ethics as well.
One of my key learnings from the course is the need to realize our responsibilities toward our audience…
· to do proper research
· to be authentic and respectful
· to clearly distinguish facts from opinion
“With Great Content Power Comes Great Responsibility”
This is the famous quote from the first spiderman movie that Gina Balarin uses to open up her post about Ethics in Content Marketing.
And I think it’s so on point.
The public is gaining more insights than ever before into company actions. Unethical marketing practices would not only harm users but also damage a company's reputation.
What could seem like a lucrative marketing opportunity at first can have negative consequences.
How to incorporate ethics into your content marketing
To incorporate ethics into your content marketing strategy you can:
✔️ use multiple resources for research
✔️ double-check information (also by multiple people)
✔️ document your research process
✔️ use a respectful brand voice
✔️ make sure to protect the privacy of both employees and users
and you should avoid:
❌ misleading advertisements or spreading lies
❌ hidden costs
❌ spamming or contacting people without their consent
❌ plagiarism or copying content
❌ black-hat SEO practices
More resources about ethical marketing practices:
- Unethical and false marketing by mobile cuisine
- How To Draw The Line On Unethical Marketing by Forbes
- The importance of avoiding unethical advertising practices by colourgraphics
Guides for ethical content marketing
- Izea.com has published a complete Guide for Ethical Content Marketing
- Contently.com also provides a Code of Ethics for Journalism and Content Marketing
Summary
The content that you put out across different channels has an impact on your audience. Therefore, it is important to consider content ethics for decision-making and to avoid cognitive bias.
Further Reading
There are a lot of areas to take into consideration when creating ethical content marketing. Starting from adhering to the data protection law to ensuring smooth internal content workflows. My colleague Fida Sarji wrote a post about data protection and my colleague Azza El Arabi wrote a post about content governance.
