6 tips for practicing ethical inbound marketing

When creating your inbound marketing strategy, maintain high standards

Inbound marketing takes time and effort. You do your best to write interesting original content; create social media posts and monitor comments; find captivating images for your work; and manage your readers’ testimonials. Through all your hard work, keep in mind that it’s important to be honest with your audience in your every inbound marketing effort.

Here are six tips for practicing good ethics in inbound marketing.

1. Create authentic content.

It isn’t always easy to create great content consistently. You can occasionally run out of ideas and have writer’s block. It happens to everyone. It’s ok to browse someone else’s content to get inspiration and ideas. But it’s not ok to steal other people’s content. Not only is it unethical, but search engines will penalize you for it. Create your own content by sharing your experiences, thoughts and ideas.

Always give credit.

When you use images, research and infographics that are not yours, always credit authors for their work.

Be helpful and kind.

Create content that is useful and interesting to your readers. Remember that you write for a diverse audience. Learn to be kind with respect to other people’s beliefs, points of views and cultures. Do not post any offensive, violent and/or discriminating content that may offend your readers.

Be honest to your readers.

If you get some fair criticism about your content, don’t delete it just to look good. Learn how to handle criticism and correct your mistakes. It is not an ethical inbound marketing practice to tweak your visitors’ comments to your benefit.

Respect your visitors’ privacy and time.

Your readers trust you with their private information (email, etc.). Respect their privacy by not giving it away to a third party. Respect your readers’ time by not sending them irrelevant content. You risk losing your readers and diminishing your site’s authority by spamming people.

Never pay for links and social media following.

Build genuine relations with your audience. Never buy likes and links. It may take longer to acquire inbound links and social media following, but it will pay off in conversion of your readers and your business growth.

Axia Public Relations always offers services that are compliant with high ethical business standards. We would like your inbound marketing strategy to be successful. Download our e-book Maximizing Your Public Relations Investment: A guide to remarketing PR for maximum ROI to take your inbound marketing strategy to the next level.

Yulia Dianova is a public relations professional who is skilled in building relationships with target audiences. She provides counsel to organizations that seek PR help to further their growth and reach their goals. Yulia earned a master’s degree in public relations management from University of Maryland University College. She is fluent in Russian and English and is always looking for a new challenge. Yulia has worked for Axia Public Relations since July 2015. Learn more about Yulia Dianova. Connect with Axia on Twitter @axiapr or tell us what you think in the comments below.