Or maybe more accurately, who is telling stories about you?
I was recently doing some surfing to find web references to my employer and discovered some interesting things. Not that this is particularly new to anyone reading this space or other blogs in the list to the right. If you aren’t telling your story in as many places as possible, it is likely that somebody else will be telling stories about you. And yes, there is a distinction.
The information that you post on Wikipedia about your organization may be consistently different than information that is posted about you by someone else. If you allow another individual to control your story, you may be sorry.
And what about Facebook? Same thing. Allowing others to dictate the interaction may not be what you want.
Now, I am not saying that you bite the hand that feeds you. Actually, what needs to be done is create a consistent, accurate access point to your organization. And then let your donors and constituents make use of the information.
Do you have a FaceBook group created? Maybe you should think about how you might make use of the space to inform, encourage, and motivate your donors.
Do you monitor Wikipedia to see what is being posted on your space. It is, after all, an encyclopedia that provides information about your organization. Has someone done a “dump and run” on your space? Go clean it up.
Is someone posting your media files to places like YouTube, BrightCove or other hosting sites? Plan a release strategy that beats them to the punch and grabs viewers back to your website.
Hopefully this helps to stimulate some thinking about making use of the spaces that are available to you. Take the time to search various locations. You might be surprised at what you find out about yourself.
