[WikiEN-l] PR consultants: perhaps Wikipedia is not the ideal promotional medium

[Fred Bauder]

That's right. It isn't that we don't want an article and a skilled PR
editor ought to be able to write an article the average editor could not
tell was written by a PR person. The clue to bad work is lifting stuff
from the company's website. And, of course, the complete absence of any
negative information, however notorious.

Fred

> A PR agent should be able to learn how to write a neutral article, if
> they see one aspect of their role as to provide information about
> their client, not necessarily to directly promote them. In the fields
> I work in, I have frequently worked with PR staff, and about half of
> them have proved open to learning a new medium.  (The basic
> instruction I give them is to write a dull an article as possible,
> remove all possible adjectives, use the minimum number of words, give
> the name of the company only once, list nobody but the successive
> CEOs, provide specific sourced numbers about market share,  and give
> no contact information beyond the principal web site.) And when I see
> a promotional article for a notable company, if I have the time i
> neither delete nor blank it, but rewrite it according to my just those
> instructions.
>
> And if we had a systematic campaign to provide basic information about
> all companies that meet our notabiliity requirements, the way we do
> for populated places, it would greatly diminish the tendency for
> people to think they needed to write their own article.
>
> David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 5:34 AM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>> This article makes my week.
>>
>> I generally feel we should blank articles more and delete them less,
>> but this is an area where the explicit rebuff of deletion has its
>> advantages.
>>
>> SJ
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 8:41 PM, Durova <nadezhda.durova at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> Excellent piece.  Especially the close about how it's a difficult
>>> position
>>> for PR professionals to report to the client that the article was
>>> deleted.
>>>
>>> -Durova
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 1:35 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://rushprnews.com/2010/03/31/pr-consultants-should-think-twice-before-using-wikipedia-to-promote-clients
>>>>
>>>> PR consultants should think twice before using Wikipedia to promote
>>>> clients
>>>> March 31, 2010
>>>>
>>>> Leicestershire, UK (RPRN) 03/31/10 — PR consultants are being advised
>>>> to think twice before incorporating Wikipedia entries into campaign
>>>> strategies after the site started cracking down on articles submitted
>>>> by any public relations agency it considered to be using its resource
>>>> to promote clients.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> (muwahaha. Spotted by Mathias Schindler. The article sets out en:wp's
>>>> rationales and likely actions very well indeed.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> - d.
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> http://durova.blogspot.com/
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