Fact-Checking Online

Filed in archive Business Tips on March 12, 2010

© quartermane


How often do you visit Wikipedia on a daily basis?

It's a question you might not have considered before, but is worth asking. Why? Because you may not be visiting it but a substantial number of your customers probably do.

This post isn't to discuss whether Wikipedia contains accurate information or not. Plenty of other blogs and articles do that well enough already. The point I want to make here is check your facts.

Wikipedia and those "text your question" numbers and even Yahoo answers exist because we live in an information age. We can easily look up or find facts with a simple Google search. So if you put out numbers in a presentation, or on your website, be sure someone out there will compare and fact check you. It can be quite embarrassing if your facts don't check out.

Even facts about your own company need to be double-checked. Thirty of forty years ago what the public took what a company said about itself at face value. It took hours of digging to find evidence to the contrary. Now, you can just surf the better business bureau or review sites to see if you're buying from an honest business or not.

You can't control what people say about you, but you can make sure that the facts match across the board. Think of it as an incentive to stay true to good business values.

How do you fact check numbers your company releases? Have you ever been called out?

(Secondary note: if your company or field is prominent to have a Wikipedia article, double check to make sure those facts check out too!)