This is an outline originally posted on my blog mommess.com. In some ways it’s a way to think about how to approach your digital marketing on the web, and how to evaluate services that may be trying to sell you on “fast” “cheap” or “automatic” processes. Yes, you can choose products and services like this, but nothing takes the place of having a guideline of how is best to approach your marketing.
Ethics always matter.
Full piece posted here.
White Hat Operators (WHO) do the following:
- Focus on educating viewers, because informed people make better choices.
- Provide original, creative content.
- Promote messages in keeping with “goodness” (kindness, love, personal responsibility, tolerance, inclusion, growth, protection, joy)
- Consciously choose images that uplift, educate or inspire positive action in the real world.
- Respect science and empirical information, and employ rationality along with creativity.
- Spread messages within networks of real people, by packaging their content in appealing, honest ways.
- Innovate new ways to reach greater numbers of people: being web-based conceptual artists and peaceful activists.
White Hat Operators do not:
- Troll or attack others.
- Scare people for the sake of making people pay attention. For instance, a WHO may share scientific data about climate change (scary), yet only along with actionable steps to solve the problem.
- Employ troll farms, or propagate dishonest or false content, even for “good” (the end does not justify the means).
- Argue as a method of getting points across. WHO’s work in the direction of positive change, and listen deeply to successfully address unspoken beliefs. They focus on solutions, not one ups-man ship.
- Use hack-style SEO practices, link farms, or malware to achieve their aims. They don’t have to.
