In the Battle Between Right and Relevant, Which Prevails?

What’s more important, swiftness or accuracy? High profile tweeters would argue the former, world class journalists should argue the latter, and star hurdlers would say it fell somewhere between the two. Which one makes up most of the content that you read within a day? Unfortunately, a lot of us don’t have time to read through quality news stories, and Runner’s Digest isn’t available in the continental US (mainly because it doesn’t exist). If you’re getting most of your information from a source that is more concerned with relevance than rightness…now you see a problem.

The damage control for not thinking before you speak takes much more time and energy than actually taking a beat. Gilbert Gottfried, the voice of the Aflac duck–and Aladdin’s Iago, for Disney connoisseurs–was fired within three days by the insurance company for posting ten or so insensitive tweets about the earthquake in Japan. A media strategist for Chrysler tweeted something derogatory regarding Detroit, the target city for the company’s ad campaign, and cost the company their client. The problem with social media is that once it is live, it can be distributed hundreds of times over within thirty seconds, just as long as it could have taken you to think before tweeting. Not thinking can cost you and your company a job.

How is this applicable to you? In the last several years especially, corporations are feeling pressure to be relevant themselves and are putting special emphasis on digital strategy–marketing and branding through sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and so on. To stay relevant is to stay current, and this means making sure that your company utilizes these media as frequently as possible. But as frequency receives emphasis, accuracy and appropriateness-check fall to the wayside. After Kenneth Cole released their tweet re: Egypt, what began as a 140 character marketing tactic turned into thousands of characters of backlash and even more in public apologies. All of this could’ve been mitigated with even just another pair of eyes.

This extends beyond the world of social media. In a rapid fire situation with a client, your instinct may be to parrot back responses as quickly as possible. This is neither conducive to you nor them; it does not allow you the time to think, and it does not give them the impression that you are digesting what they are saying. Silence, while often terrifying, is not always a detrimental feature. Consulting firms that provide a case study interview within their recruiting piece stress this little-respected fact and insist that interviewees take the time to writhe their thoughts out, so long as they are sure to mention beforehand that that is what they are doing. You cannot give a good recommendation without listening to the facts and giving yourself time to ponder them.

The takeaway here is something that your kindergarten teacher tried to use to indoctrinate you into honoring a quiet classroom: silence is golden. Resist the urge to hit “enter” before thinking about what you’re about to post for at least twenty seconds. Despite as Erica Albright says to Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, “[you think] every thought that tumbles through your head is so clever that it would be a crime for it not to be shared,” ask yourself: is this an accurate reflection of my company? Could I show this to my boss? And while meeting with a client, make sure to check facts–both yours and theirs–before making any sort of recommendation. The time taken will be much appreciated.

Aim somewhere between right and relevant. Think like a hurdler. Maybe a Runner’s Digest could help the corporate folk more than they realize.

To our readers: how do you find ways to remain relevant while still making sure to remain accurate?