I went to yet another social media seminar yesterday where I was reminded that the old rules of marketing and PR do not apply. The speaker, Jim Tobin of Ignite Social Media, gave it a fresh perspective: If you wouldn't do it at a cocktail party, don't do it in a social media setting. In other words, you wouldn't march up to a stranger and immediately start trying to sell her your product. (You wouldn't, would you?) So don't do it on someone's blog or on Facebook or Twitter or Wikipedia.

I also learned that if you're a social media consultant, all you have to do to establish your cred is drop a name your audience doesn't know. Jim mentioned at least three that I'm sure he made up on the spot. Watch, I can do it, too:

If you're serious about social media, you need to be on Frabtangular, Glabberplat and Weendge.

Wikipedia presents a unique challenge and a unique dichotomy. By any measure one of the top sources of news and information on the web, it's also a potential minefield for marketers. Wikipedia's guidelines make it clear that corporate flacks, shills and mouthpieces are not welcome.

At SAS we recently went through a comprehensive review of Web 2.0 channels and what we should be doing in each of them. Without too much handwringing we reaffirmed our commitment to Wikipedia's mission and it's neutrality policy. So what should we do when we see a SAS-related entry (SAS Institute or SAS System, for instance) or one that's dear to our hearts (business intelligence or predictive analytics) that could be updated to make it more accurate or interesting?

Here's a for instance: The SAS Institute entry, under a subheading called Community and Awards, mentions that we were one of Canada's best workplaces in 2007. In 2007 we were also named to the Fortune Best Companies to Work for in America list, as well as best workplaces lists in Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Europe, Portugal and China. Seems reasonable and not overly self-serving to update that, and I have made that suggestion. But again, respecting Wikipedia's guidelines, I made the suggestion on the discussion page and will let the hive mind come to a consensus on it.

We've concluded the best possible outcome for everyone, including Wikipedia, would be to have an active, knowledgeable, unbiased group of people taking a look at those entries from time to time. Even just checking the suggestions on the discussion pages would be useful, as sometimes they sit for months at a time before someone acts on them.

To get involved, you should register with Wikipedia, brush up on your Wiki editing skills, and read a few FAQs. Surely there are people out there who would like to participate in the process. Possibly someone you know? Possibly you?