The double-edged Web
By Leo Valiquette
Despite all the hype, hoopla and debate around social media as a marketing and public relations tool, there is one even more fundamental aspect of the Web that is far more pervasive: the search.
It seems weird to say “the search” without putting “Google” in there, but there are other services available to dig up information, Wikipedia being the most obvious. It used to be that information was power, now it’s an avalanche that overwhelms us. Intelligence is what’s important: the ability to filter through the overload to determine what is useful and chart trends or patterns that have meaning and relevance.
When all that information is so readily available and convenient, it’s easy to take it at face value without looking deeper and doing some good old-fashioned digging to verify facts and the credibility of the source. For a journalist on deadline eager to wrap up a story, it can be a trap. Take the example cited by Drew Benvie at Drew B’s take on tech PR, in which a fictional athlete was presented in an article as an actual person, thanks to a bogus profile on Wikipedia.
That’s not to suggest that Wikipedia is not a valid research tool, but it is vulnerable to abuse and demonstrates the importance of verifying facts and cross-referencing any online source of information.
For organizations sensitive to how their brand or image is being presented to the world, it is definitely important to keep an eye on such online information portals to ensure the accuracy of whatever information is being presented about them.
And while there are valid questions about the veracity of online information, what about the value of obtaining media coverage online instead of in print?
As a newspaper editor with only so many inches of space in the print product but much more on the website, I would often hear the complaint that running a story only online was somehow inferior to running it in print.
Sure, there is tactile satisfaction to be had in handling ink-stained paper, but it should be amply evident by now that content online lives far longer and reaches a far larger audience than the processed corpses of trees. In the newspaper business, I would get feedback on stories from readers on other continents after the content appeared online. The print product, on the other hand, was distributed in only one city. You do the math.
Kevin Dugan at the Bad Pitch Blog shares my sentiment and offers a video clip to help make the point.
