Custom influencer searches for PR and marketing professionals who lead brand-reputation programs
Blekko is a new search engine that includes some time saving features for PR and marketing professionals who want to track a narrow set of online publications or domains. By allowing you to select only the domains or pages that you want searched, it helps you stay focused on the people who really influence your business and reduces the spam in your coverage scans.
Blekko uses what it calls Slashtags that allow you to "slash in" or "slash out" what you want in a search. This easy-to-use process allows you to create a complicated search, publish it for others to use and then repeat it quickly. For example, a Blekko user named Max created a list of advertising publications. If you wanted to do a search to see if your company was mentioned in AdAge, Adweek or MediaPost, you would search in Blekko like this:
Company Name /max/advertising
That string searches for "Company Name" using Max's predefined list of advertising domains. A snip of those publications can be seen below.
Instead of getting back a bunch of spam blogs like I do with a Google search, Blekko only gives me back results from the 21 publications that matter in the advertising and media industry. If you add a /date Slashtag, it will sort those results by date instead of relevancy. Another great tool when you are monitoring the web daily for news on you or your competitors.
Additionally, Blekko allows you to publish these searches in RSS so you can share them with your teammates or with your client. Pop them into Google Reader and you have a searchable archive of your news that is easy to read, process and report.
The current downside I'm finding with Blekko is that some of the less-popular domains are only searched every 14 days. Hopefully Blekko will address that issue as they come out of beta and put together the computing power to crawl the Internet faster.
Blekko has been in a super stealth mode for more than a year. They seem to be on solid financial ground with $20 million in financing. I'm not going to call them a Google killer because that would surely doom them. They are building some steam and they gave Robert Scoble a peek at their product in this long, but informative 45 minute YouTube video.
Blekko is really a lot more than the simple features that I've outlined. For example, the SEO rankings are radically different because they are completely open. I'll leave it to others to give you the feature-by-feature review. If you're a PR or marketing person managing the reputation of a brand, you really must give Blekko a try.
You may find that my Blekko links in this post don't work for you. You may need to get an invite to Blekko before you can access them. On Twitter, Follow @blekko and then ask for an invite and they'll direct message you in a day or so. Or you can email your request to scoble+at+ blekko.com (I lifted this address from the end of the Robert Scoble video).
Transparent communication in public relations and marketing
The MobileCrunch story titled Cheating the App Store: PR firm has interns post positive reviews for clients details alleged misconduct by Reverb Communications. The story has stirred up another round of discussions about ethical behavior and transparency in public relations. When these controversies surface, it reminds me that professional public relations practitioners have a code of ethics that is well defined by the Public Relations Society of America. They aren't complicated and do a good job of anticipating a situation where a communicator would be tempted to unfairly promote their client's products or interests.
The core principle of the code of ethics is that open communication fosters informed decision making in a democratic society. The intent is to build trust with the public by revealing all information needed for responsible decision making. The principle requires that a PR person reveal the sponsors for causes and interests represented and openly discloses financial interest. An example of improper conduct is a front group that implements "grass roots" campaigns or letter-writing campaigns to legislators on behalf of undisclosed interest groups. Certainly, employees that get their salary from a client they are reviewing would need to disclose that fact to readers under this simple definition.
The online world expects more transparency and disclosure than we have seen in the past so PR and marketing professionals need to rise to that standard. If you find yourself responding online (or offline) to a comment, just open with a sentence that says "I work for XX that represents XX." That quick disclosure avoids a real or perceived conflict of interest. I often hear that the people who work and sell a company's products are the most knowledgeable about the product and the problems it solves. I agree that they probably are the best experts on that topic and should respond to questions, but the code of ethics and general honesty require that you disclose your affiliation. I find that it actually increases your credibility in the online conversation when you disclose these facts because people know that you have strong domain experience.
Next time a client or manager asks why can't they edit their company's Wikipedia entry or anonymously respond to criticism on a blog, point them to these clear ethical guidelines. If that doesn't convince them, direct them to read the outrage in the comments section of the MobileCrunch story.
Now for my disclosures - I am the past president for PRSA Silicon Valley and I work at Edelman, a PR agency.
Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference Web sites, attracting at least 684 million visitors yearly by 2008. There are more than 75,000 active contributors working on more than 10,000,000 articles in more than 250 languages. Entries to Wikipedia often rank high in search engine results and are generally held in high regard by online communities. This trust is fueled in part by Wikipedia’s emphasis on transparency.
Wikipedia Guidelines
Wikipedia includes a list of guidelines that govern its use. When observed, contributors can freely make edits and advance the Wikipedia project. Violations of these guidelines are looked upon negatively by the Wikipedia community and will be removed. Occasionally, an editor or organization that violates these rules is exposed in a public way that diminishes their credibility with customers and other constituents. A simple Internet search of “conflict of interest Wikipedia” returns dozens of stories and blog posts exposing companies that updated a Wikipedia entry. Even factual changes made contrary to the guidelines can damage trust. Content guidelines should be reviewed before an editor makes changes to Wikipedia.
Conflict of Interest
Wikipedia’s conflict of interestpage is the recommended first stop for all marketing and public relations professionals. This short article clearly outlines that Wikipedia aims to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia. Directly from the Wikipedia site – “COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups. Where an editor must forgo advancing the aims of Wikipedia in order to advance outside interests, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.”
Although an employee at a company may be the best expert on a topic, technology or product, they have a conflict of interest if their comments benefit that company. According to the guidelines, they should not edit Wikipedia pages “in areas where there is a conflict of interest that would make the edits non-neutral (biased).” Remember that changes are forever recorded in the history section and Wiki editors use tools to trace changes back to individuals to assess their conflict of interest.
Wikiquette
Wikipedia operates on the principal of assumed good faith and its editors follow etiquette guidelines. People come to the site to collaborate and write good articles and in return expect transparency and open disclosure.
·Make all entries verifiable by including references and evidence for each claim or fact
The list of what Wikipedia is not helps contributors understand that the site is not a soapbox, publisher of original thought, advertising outlet, repository of links, directory, democracy or a battleground.
Correcting Information
Wikipedia does have an outlet for circumstances in which information on a Wikipedia page is incorrect and the editor has a conflict of interest. For example, if a page on a specific company incorrectly states the inventor of the company’s key technology, a PR or marketing person can justifiably initiate a correction process. This entails making an appeal to the discussion page located on the top row of tabs of each Wiki entry. This is a place where editors can discuss the contents of the pages and mediate their disagreements. By making an appeal on the discussion page, the contributor is asking a fellow editor without a conflict of interest to make changes. On pages where there is frequent discussion and monitoring, changes can be made quickly by a neutral community member.
Neutral third parties, such as industry analysts and user group members, can be contributors to articles in their subject area. By scanning the list of previous contributors, you may find a neutral party whom you already know. Contact that person through the user talk page to discuss your update.
Experience shows that it can be effective to publish correct information on a company-sponsored page and release it for publication on Wikipedia, giving a neutral third-party editor all the information needed to make a correction. Please see below a letter from Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia co-founder on this topic.
Encouraging experts without a conflict of interest to contribute to Wikipedia speeds the correction process andbuilds reciprocal trust.
Recommendations for appeals to the discussion page:
1.Clearly disclose your affiliation and conflict of interest. Transparency is key to building trust.
2.State your recommended changes and cite verifiable references.
3.Explain your recommendations so others can see their validity. You are working towards a compromise and a balanced presentation.
4.Feel free to discuss the issue on the discussion page. You may even post your recommended changes on this page.
5.Check back on the discussion page to answer questions from the community about your request.
8.If you find you are in dispute with a specific editor, see the dispute resolution page for assistance. There are formal and informal methods of resolving the conflict.
·Letter from Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia:
I 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.
It is all well and good to say, well, it is ok so long as they remain neutral, but if they really want to write neutral articles, they can do so, on their own websites, and release the work under the FDL [MIT’s GNU Free Documentation License], and notify Wikipedians who are totally independent.
Additionally, it is always appropriate to interact on the talk pages of articles.If a PR firm is not happy about how something is presented about their client, they can identify themselves openly on the talk page, and present well-reasoned arguments and additional information and links.
Of course it is always going to be the case that unethical practitioners may get involved in inappropriate behavior, but I think this is no argument for simply accepting it.Rather, it is a strong argument for asking people to do this the right way: transparently and allowing independent editors to make the actual editing decisions.
--Jimbo
- Nabble.Com Mailing List
August 21, 2006
This document was drafted by Travis Murdock on August 28, 2008. This document paraphrases and copies text from several Wikipedia articles. These articles have been referenced where possible with their corresponding URLs. Last updated on October 23, 2008.
I'm a public relations and marketing professional in the San Francisco Bay Area. I currently work for the PR agency Edelman and I'm the past president for PRSA Silicon Valley.
Blekko is a new search engine that includes some time saving features for PR and marketing professionals who want to track a narrow set of online publications or domains. By allowing you to select only the domains or pages that you want searched, it helps you stay focused on the people who really influence your business and reduces the spam in your coverage scans.
