PR and Wikipedia: Friends or Foes?

February 8th, 2012

Newt Gingrich’s communications director, Joe DeSantis, is taking heat for editing and requesting edits to Newt’s Wikipedia page. Wiki editors cry foul when an organization (or its representative) with a conflict of interest attempts to manage Wikipedia content. This run-in with Wikipedia culture and its editorial etiquette reminds me of some key challenges for public relations, not the least of which is the manner in which relationships with Wiki editors are handled and the willingness of Wiki editors to listen.

One thing public relations professionals have to respect is that as representatives of a business, organization, or group, we have an inherent conflict of interest whether we have the best and most ethical intentions or not.  According to Wikipedia policy, we should not make edits to Wiki pages where that conflict exists. I, for one, am comfortable with this. The value of Wikipedia is lost if pages for corporations are edited by communications departments and pages in turn end up reading like corporate websites.

Wikipedia has created built in Talk pages where discussions between editors and readers can discuss factual inaccuracies, biases, and weakly supported or unverified content. With knowledge of the organization and access to information, a PR professional can add considerable value to Wikipedia pages through the Talk pages. Wiki editors can then listen and decide for themselves the importance and credibility of information provided by corporations and PR pros. This is what it’s all about if corporations are to become more social: Engage in meaningful discussion online.

The trick is that Wiki editors have to be willing to listen to organizations and their communications reps. From my experience, most editors seem willing to listen and they appreciate being directed to valuable information. They respect transparency and openness in communication. However, I have run into editors that have conflicts of their own – one was a founder of a non-profit that had a beef with a certain class of prescription drugs. So even third party editors have biases and conflicts, and I trust that balance will come from the majority of Wiki editors that are truly outsiders.

Wikipedia has become a powerful source of information (with insanely remarkable search engine rankings) and with its own set of rules. For it to remain relevant, it must evaluate and value information from all sources, including from corporations. There is a role for public relations on Wikipedia. We just have to play by Wikipedia rules.

Have you run into a Wiki editor that seemed to have their own agenda?

Jason Spark is a senior vice president at Canale Communications and can be reached at jason@canalecomm.com.

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Being a Thought Leader is a Full Time Job

October 24th, 2011

Much of what we do in PR is positioning our clients as thought leaders in their area of specialty. But becoming a member of the “who’s who” club is more than just leadership positioning activities, such as speaking engagements, panel participation and writing op/eds. Being a thought leader is a way of life, and if you want to be seen as one, you need to act like a thought leader all the time. Here are a few things that we have recommended to clients who want to become thought leaders in their space:

  • Identify other thought leaders. Hopefully you already know who these people are, but if you don’t, do some homework. Find people who have their finger on the pulse of the industry, are speaking at conferences, are being quoted in articles and (if they are participating in social media) have a Twitter following. Once you know who they are, follow what they are saying. What trends are they discussing and what are their opinions?
  • Rub elbows with other thought leaders if you want to be one. Take advantage of social media platforms like Linked In to introduce yourself, or begin following and interacting with thought leaders on Twitter. Go to conferences that the “in crowd” is attending. There is significant value in attendance, particularly at high-impact, specialty conferences that focus on the future of the industry, such as Health 2.0, even if you aren’t presenting.
  • Develop a platform such as a “fireside chat” conference session where you lead a discussion about a relevant and juicy topic with additional thought leaders on stage. The combined reputation equity of several thought leaders can be a big draw, bringing people to listen to you share your ideas.
  • Have an intelligent, well-formed opinion, and be provocative. Don’t jump on the bandwagon and opine about only trendy topics or simply agree with others. Say something different or controversial. Pull out your crystal ball and predict what trends are coming and the impact those trends may have on the space.
  • True thought leaders—those who are the drivers of change—have a large sphere of influence that is only gained through good networking. That doesn’t mean just knowing a lot of people. That means having meaningful relationships with a lot of people through ongoing interactions. You will find that as you continue to interact in intelligent and thoughtful ways, people will take notice of what you are saying and will begin seeing you as a thought leader too.
  • Most importantly, BE GENUINE! People can spot a phony from a mile away, and if you are just going through the motions, you won’t be seen as a thought leader because people won’t trust what you have to say.

Heidi Chokeir is an account director at Canale Communications and can be reached at heidi@canalecomm.com.

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Life Science Communications Pros Want to Know if Twitter is Measurable

August 16th, 2011

My colleagues reminded me that I owed a follow up to my post touching on social media for investor relations. I had promised to come back with comments on Twitter measurement tools. After the long anticipated wait, the answer is that there isn’t a one-size fits all solution.

Many communications veterans want to assign big numbers around impressions, circulation, and, less so, the always dangerous ad value equivalency. These tools have been on the outs in traditional PR for some time and they should really be outlawed for social media platforms such as Twitter. Why? As PR measurement guru @kdpaine told the Top Rank online marketing blog, “Even if you have 10,000 followers on Twitter, you have no idea how many people saw your tweet because of the continuous updates and the volume of tweets. The only thing you can accurately count is what readers do as a result of seeing the information.”

In other words, how much influence do you have over your followers and what level of engagement are you able to generate? Quality over quantity. Social media is about engagement. Here are a few unofficial ways I’ve tracked and been advised in tracking engagement on Twitter.

Retweets (and replies) trump followers: I keep an eye on the growth in the number of followers – that’s a good indication of being seen. However, what’s more important to me is frequency in which you are retweeted. This shows that people are seeing what you have to say, that they found you credible and relevant, and that what you said is interesting enough for them to share it with their followers. Retweets and replies reflect engagement.

Influence of Retweet: I also keep an eye on the quality of followers. A retweet by someone that is only followed by a few people isn’t that valuable. However, a retweet by someone with hundreds or thousands of followers is something I can boast to my client about. So the retweet volume alone isn’t perfect and isn’t the end-all.

Quality of the Audience: Now, I want to know the type of audience I’m reaching. I’m in the business of healthcare and life sciences, so a retweet by @ladygaga to her 11.8M followers might be pretty cool. But a retweet by @sanjayguptaCNN to his measly 1.3 million followers would be more meaningful for targeting an audience that cares specifically about health and medicine.

So how do you measure retweets and influencers? There are some free tools out there such as Klout.com, RetweetRank.com, Twitter Counter (extra fee for retweet tracking), or tweet.grader.com as well as paid services such as Radian6. They have their strengths and weaknesses, and everyone seems to have their own favorite.

The key for me is to first establish overarching communications objectives, followed by defining a benchmark (for example, baseline retweets and influence), and then sketch out specific goals using benchmarks as a starting point. With goals and a benchmark in place at the beginning, a customizable approach to measuring how Twitter can impact reputation is just a double click away.

What tools do you use to measure the communications value of your Twitter campaign?

Jason Spark is a senior vice president at Canale Communications and can be reached at jason@canalecomm.com.

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