Professional Ethics

This blog post takes a look at some of the professional ethical issues that we face as business professionals and marketers. It will also explore some rules that marketing professionals, bloggers, and social media managers should adhere to when it comes to taking professional photos, uploading videos, and using social media. The goal of the blog is to help decide what is appropriate for your profession and your brand!

"Professional Ethics: A Guide for Marketers on What's Appropriate"

As bloggers, publicists, website owners or any other digital marketer who uses visual content in any capacity online these days it can be difficult to know exactly what's okay in terms of ethics with respect to what you are posting online. There are a lot of rules that have to be followed in order to make sure that you are not violating any digital marketplace policies or rules. For example, on YouTube you can't post anything that is sexually explicit or violent. If it's not allowed on television then it's not allowed on YouTube.

Some other important things to remember:

1. Don't use copyrighted material. That includes songs, audio, images, and video clips. Remember that you also can't put up copyrighted material for every purpose (educational or not). You can get yourself in a lot of trouble if you don't know the rules. YouTube will immediately pull your videos if they contain copyrighted materials without warning and without repercussion to the account holder.

2. Don't use images of children or people who are not able to give consent in your content. It is called child exploitation when you do this and it's just plain wrong in every single way imaginable.

3. Don't use images of celebrities or other people who don't want their image posted in your content without permission. This is called image appropriation and it's illegal to do so. Aside from the fact that you are violating copyright law, you are also infringing on privacy rights of others. It is never okay to post private images, such as nude photos or photos of someone when they were young, on your own blog or website without permission.

4. Don't advertise products that you haven't used yourself or have not received payment for. That's called click fraud and you can get yourself in a lot of trouble with the government if you do this. If a product or service that you have advertised receives bad reviews from people you are liable for those actions.

5. Don't use scripts or bots to generate comments, track clicks, or otherwise create fake activity on your blog. It is against Google's Webmaster guidelines and will not help in improving your site's ranking over time. In fact, it will almost guarantee you will get penalized by the search engine algorithms.

6. Don't create misleading ads or false headlines on your blog in order to try to get people to click on them. It is against advertising policies to do this and it's fraud.

7. Don't try to impersonate someone else online. That includes profiles, email addresses, or other identifying information under your name in a forum. It is probably illegal and you can get into a lot of trouble when you're caught doing this as it can be considered identity theft.

8. Don't create fake accounts for the purpose of negative posting online about others or their products or services. This is called text spam and it could result in both federal and state lawsuits against the person responsible for engaging in this behavior.

9. Don't use aliases, or false identities online. You could be held liable for every single action that person takes when they are using a false identity or alias.

10. Don't try to convince someone else to commit a crime that you have no intention of carrying out yourself. It is called solicitation of crime, and people can get in trouble for asking others to commit fraud or other illegal activities. If you decide to try this you should know that it's very risky and there are a lot of laws on the books that make this behavior illegal.

11. Don't post any type of illegal material or pornographic content on your blog. You should know that if you are caught doing this you could be criminally prosecuted and even sent to prison for a very long time.

12. Don't post private information online that was obtained in a public place without permission. That is called public disclosure of private facts, which is illegal in many states and can be used against you in court if the information that was posted online makes it likely that you did something wrong.

13. Don't try to impersonate someone else online by posting photos or videos of them on your blog or website with their name and photo on it. That's called impersonation and you could be held liable for every single action someone does under the equivalent of your name online.

14. Don't attach viruses, worms, or malware to any email you send out or share online. That is illegal and if you are caught doing this you can go to jail for a very long time or have to pay a fine of many thousands of dollars.

15. Don't try to hack into another person's account in order to make them do something that they would not otherwise do in their own name. It is considered identity theft and people can be prosecuted for it if they are caught doing it without the consent of the owner of an account that is hacked.

16. Don't try to hack into someone else's account for the purpose of negative posting about them, their company, or their products on your blog. It is called cyber-bullying and it's against the law in most states.

17. Don't spam people with emails to try to get them to read, click on a link, or respond to some type of content that you have posted online. That is called spamming and it's against the law in all 50 states and can result in very serious legal penalties if you are caught doing it.

Conclusion

So, the moral of the story is this: You can do a lot of damage to your business by posting content that violates copyright law or otherwise acts in an illegal manner.

Folks who are new to blogging often ask me how they can tell what's legal and what's not when they're posting material online. The answer is that it's not possible to know for certain every single time. It is important, though, that you learn the laws and follow them so that you never get into trouble with anyone else over your blog.

Rambles will be back with a new post tomorrow around noon (Pacific Time).