Healthcare organizations have a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips, and many have great blogs. But how do you convince busy co-workers, physicians, and executives to devote time to creating blog content? Blog ghostwriting, also known as “ghosting,” may be the answer to delivering content to share your hospital’s expertise, educate your community, and make your marketing plan a success.

Benefits of Ghostwriting

Ghostwriting is when one person writes something, and they attribute it to someone else. In addition to blogging, ghosting occurs in many creative, including music and fine art. Comics are a great example where several assistants do the work, and a single artist gets credit. Ghostwriting connects your organization’s expertise, writing ability, and audience. Some of the benefits of ghostwriting include:

Expert content: Many executives and physicians love the chance to promote both themselves and the organization. Unfortunately, many are too busy to write blog posts. Ghosting shifts much of the effort from the subject matter expert to the writer, whether it’s you or a hired freelancer.

Better writing: Some experts are great speakers, and some are great writers, but sometimes they aren’t both. Nobody wants to look like a poor writer, so ghostwriting can reassure your expert that the post will be written by a professional. Blog ghostwriting can also provide continuity in tone and voice across all your content.

The power of collaboration: Your subject matter expert provides thought leadership to your marketing efforts, and writers bring the technical knowledge to create content. The combination of these two areas results in blogs that are informative, entertaining, and will increase the likelihood that readers will return to your website.

Common Forms of Ghostwriting

The process of ghostwriting posts can take on various methods, and you may find that a combination of them works best for you. There are four common ways of ghosting:

Expert writes, ghostwriter edits: This may be the easiest approach and is perfect if the subject matter expert likes to write. This method works best for a ghostwriter who doesn’t know much about the topic but can edit the copy to make sure the writing is clear and entertaining

Expert outlines, ghostwriter writes: The expert provides an outline or basic detail from which the writer produces a blog post. The ghostwriter works from the outline and fills in the blanks by adding meaningful content.

Ghostwriter interviews and writes: The expert and writer work together on the draft. In this format, the author gathers the information directly from the expert. While this may take more time for the writer, he or she will be able to write knowing the subject matter expert’s viewpoints and expertise.

Ghostwriter writes the post: The author researches and writes the content, and then the expert’s name is attached to the post. This method takes some time to develop and works best if your expert is willing to give up some control.

After a ghostwriter produces a blog post, it should go through a review, editing, and revision process before you post it. Your experts’ attitudes will vary regarding how involved they want to be in the review process. One of the most time-consuming parts of the process may be getting your busy executive or physician to review your post.