PR Professionals Have A Long Way To Go With Wikipedia
June 14, 2012
I was interviewed for a piece about Wikipedia and PR, in PR Daily on Ragan.com. From my 10 minute interview, only two clips were included.
I thought the writer, Russell Working, did a good job with the comments from Robert Lawton and David Goodman, in fact I thought the article was helpful in providing useful information and education. For the PR reader it was mainly helpful.
However, I was concerned Wikipedians would bristle at the headline, and this may harm PR professionals as a result... you may not know, but there was a lot of flak from a previous study and some unfortunate headlines. However, I haven't seen any criticism yet from Wikipedians.
The PR industry will not make any headway, until professionals act responsibly (education), but that doesn't mean the gives up on their legitimate concerns; however I don't think many Wikipedians are convinced there are any concerns about the site. Especially as their only experience with PR professionals is negative, and as a result there's no willingness yet to listen to those concerns, in turn, those Wikipedians feel the PR professionals are the only people who need to change. Again, the PR profession has to build trust by acting responsibly, but also provide incontrovertible evidence that there's a problem.
PR professionals aren't there yet, they have a long way to go, both on the education issue for themselves, in order to build trust, and in providing research that backs up the PR professional's perspective.
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Just a reminder, I’m a digital marketer, but as I started blogging in 2003, and called my blog PR Communications I’m often associated with the profession. During those early blogging years what I was writing about, was also being written by many PR professionals, I found kindred spirits in the profession, especially amongst social media PR professions. My friendship with many bloggers and colleagues in the PR industry is one reason I suggested the development of the CREWE Facebook site.