On the back business page of The Australian today columnist Rebecca Urban leads with the headline:
“Telstra flack flits in to finesse Sol’s Wikipedia entry”
Seems the CEO of Australia’s national telecommunications company doesn’t have the most flattering profile page. What’s recounted next is an example of best practise when dealing with a bad Wikipedia entry.
Corporate communications pro Tarnya Dunning offers to provide information on the talk pages of Wikipedia, and says she will not directly edit any of the material on Telstra. Then if anyone else so chooses they can update the pages to reflect some of Dunning’s comments.
Direct editing of Wikipedia pages by public relations professionals is not suggested. In fact the changes - and the fact they were made by a PR person - usually makes headlines.
Wikipedia is a penultimate example of social media. Dunning shows she understands by offering to provide her point of view to the contributors, with the hope that some will use that to more accurately protray her company.
Well done Tarnya!
