{"id":953,"date":"2013-12-12T12:13:18","date_gmt":"2013-12-12T17:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/felicity\/old\/?p=953"},"modified":"2013-12-12T12:13:18","modified_gmt":"2013-12-12T17:13:18","slug":"online-authenticity-transparency-trumps-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/felicitypr.com\/online-authenticity-transparency-trumps-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Authenticity: Transparency Trumps All"},"content":{"rendered":"
Wikipedia\u2019s recent cease-and-desist letter against a Texas public relations firm editing their clients\u2019 entries<\/a> is an excellent reminder for all marketers, communicators and PR professionals: online transparency has never been more important.<\/p>\n Wikipedia is known for encouraging volunteers to collaboratively author and edit pages for accuracy. When it became clear that Wiki-PR was using false identities and user accounts to edit Wikipedia entries on behalf of clients, this understandably caused a tremendous amount of outrage within the tightknit Wikipedia community.<\/p>\n The tension between Wikipedia and PR firms is not new. In 2006, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales stated<\/a>:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI think we need to be very clear in a lot of different places that PR firms editing Wikipedia is something that we frown upon very very strongly. The appearance of impropriety is so great that we should make it very very strongly clear to these firms that we do not approve of what they would like to do.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/em><\/p>\n Wiki-PR states that their expertise is in consulting on how brands interact with the Wikipedia community by maintaining an effective brand page and monitoring any related pages for relevant feedback. In theory, this sounds harmless and well-aligned with one of the primary functions of public relations.<\/p>\n If part of the aim of PR is to communicate key messages to various stakeholders, how can this be done effectively \u2013 and transparently \u2013 through Wikipedia? The answer isn\u2019t so straightforward. Wikipedia encourages a transparent dialogue around proposed changes to brand or company pages, but only through their moderated \u2018Talk\u2019 or discussion pages<\/a>. Direct changes to brand or company pages by a representative acting on behalf of the organization \u2013 either an internal employee or external agency partner \u2013 remain strictly verboten.<\/p>\n If this is the case, there appears to be little a PR firm can do to amend incorrect information or add new information, outside of participating in the brand or company\u2019s \u2018Talk\u2019 page and crossing their fingers that an update will be made.<\/p>\n