The Social Media Marketing Blog: Quite a Sticky Wiki

Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion fame also writes a column for Advertising Age. In his lastest entry, Your Brand on Wikipedia, he notes the importance of tracking your organization's entry in Wikipedia:

Like it or not, the Wikipedia open-source phenomenon looms large right where companies are increasingly spending billions of dollars to jockey for position: on search-engine results pages.

In all seriousness, as soon as brand managers learn where they stand on Wikipedia, there is a natural inclination to want to control it. Some, in fact, actively police it. After all, anyone can. But doing so is asking for trouble.

This is one of those instances of social media marketing - like creating a fake identity on MySpace or even more current, like the YouTube/LonelyGirl15 stunt that's in the news (see LonelyGirl15's Online Diary Is the Birth of a New Art Form) - in which any disingenuous tinkering by corporations will be sniffed out and could negatively affect the brand.

By all means, it's important to monitor your company's reputation on a variety of sources. But be careful about how you get involved in the conversation. For too long, marketers have been accustomed to controling the message as a one-way push of information.

Now that we're engaging our audience in true conversations with powerful online tools, the temptation is to use those tools to try to control the message as best we can. Ignore that temptation. Let the conversations happen. Monitor them. Respond to them. But don't jump back into your old role.

We had a debate here at the agency about a month ago, trying to decide whether or not to include "Create a Wikipedia Entry" as part of our Top 5 Social Media Recommendations for a client who was considering options for organic growth of awareness. Eventually we opted to omit it as a recommendation.

Our reasoning was that the client already has content on the Web. Our job is to draw attention to it and let the conversations occur. Should a reader decide to create a wiki based on reading the content, then we would encourage the client to monitor and enhance the entry as appropriate. But we thought that it would be a mistake to lead off by creating one from scratch.

Labels: Advertising, New Media, rules, wikipedia

About Scott

For hi-res, click here

Ranked by Forbes as one of the top 10 influencers in social media, he has been called "an unstoppable force of nature," "the best corporate social media lead on the planet," and Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, called him "a visionary."

At Ford, Scott heads up the social media function and holds the title Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager. He is a strategic advisor on all social media activities across the company, from blogger relations to marketing support, customer service to internal communications and more, as social media is being integrated into many facets of Ford business.

Prior to joining Ford, Scott served as Consigliere for crayon and spent a number of years with PJA Advertising + Marketing, a boutique BtoB agency specializing in health sciences & high tech.

In addition to his professional responsibilities, Scott is an active blogger and podcaster. He writes about the intersection of advertising, marketing and PR at The Social Media Marketing Blog and also writes The Baker Street Blog and cohosts I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, two literary undertakings. Scott has been featured in hundreds of news and business publications in print and on the web, in nearly dozens of books, and on a variety of mainstream media, including NBC, NPR, CNN and The Wall Street Journal. Scott is a recognized thought leader in the social media industry and frequently speaks at industry events.

Scott received his Master's in Medical Science from Boston University's School of Medicine concurrently with his MBA from BU's Graduate School of Management. He lives in the greater Detroit area with his wife and two young sons, golfs all too infrequently, and has a hidden talent for voice over work.

Oh, and one last little-known fact: Scott coined the Oxford Dictionary of English-accepted term "tweetup."

You may download a headshot here, courtesy of Rosh Sillars; a PDF version of Scott's bio is here .

Books in which Scott or his work is featured:

The Social Media Strategist

Social Business by Design

Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications

Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Real-Time Marketing and PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now

Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web

Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business

Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements

Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead

MicroMarketing: Get Big Results by Thinking and Acting Small

Spend Shift: How the Post-Crisis Values Revolution Is Changing the Way We Buy, Sell and Live

Power Friending: Demystifying Social Media to Grow Your Business

The New Rules of Marketing & PR

by David Meerman Scott

Twitterville
by Shel Israel

Six Pixels of Separation
by Mitch Joel

Monkeys with Typewriters
by Jemima Gibbons

Read This First
by Ron Ploof

World Wide Rave
by David Meerman Scott

Get Seen
by Steve Garfield

Disclosures/Relationships

Scott is on the board of the Social Media Advertising Consortium

Scott has been named to the Advisory boards of Pivot, SavvyAuntie, Business Smart Tools, The Hive Awards,
Scott is a judge for the SAMMY Awards

Named one of iMedia's 25 Top Internet Marketing Leaders & Innovators

Humongo occasionally does web work for me and designed this site

No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.

Scott Monty Bio

Speaking Events

Scott speaks on social media at events, seminars and conferences around the world. His topic generally focuses on corporate use of social media, becoming an online spokesperson, and specifically on the progress that Ford has made in the recent past. If you're interested in booking Scott to speak at your event, please click here to submit a speaking request for Ford-related purposes or email me at speaking [AT] this site's URL (if you know what I mean) to send a general email request.. Scott's bio and headshot can be found in the "About Scott" tab above.

Who is Scott Monty?

Hi, I'm Scott. I'm the global head of social media for Ford Motor Company. This is my personal blog, where I share my perspectives on social media - the convergence of marketing, advertising and PR on the Web - for marketers, agencies, the enterprise and the individual. This blog contains my personal views. My bio is available here and my headshots can be found here.