So you want to appear on Wikipedia…

One of the requests we often receive from our clients is to integrate Wikipedia content creation into a global offline and online communication plan.

Control is good, organization is better.

To avoid errors in the articles, Wikipedia relies on the control mechanisms of the global community. And that works amazingly well. There are many pranksters who fill articles with false information just to prove that the controls are working.  It usually only takes a few seconds to delete the information.

The processes are much more structured than casual users think.

Since everyone can participate, many companies find it easy to create their own entry about themselves. After all, everyone can write about anything here. However, this is a huge misunderstanding. New items created in this way are usually removed in a short time. Because all new entries go through the control mechanisms.

When it comes to content, Wikipedia is very strict. There are about 150 rules and guidelines that specify user behavior and, above all, the permissibility of content.

There are great advantages to being listed.  First, an entry brings prestige, second, Wikipedia can generate a lot of traffic

It is a task that works on two fronts: it allows an entry about the company to be positioned very well in search engines and in turn locates that same brand on a reference website for Internet users. Not for nothing is it a giant with more than 15 million registered users.

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.​
2. Contributions should be drafted in such a way that they comply with the principle of a neutral point of view.
3. Applicable law, in particular copyright, must be observed very strictly.​
4. Other users must be respected and Wikipedia must be respected.

Neither individuals nor institutions should write about themselves, as this contradicts the principle of the neutral point of view.  However, Wikipedia does not directly prohibit writing about you, as long as the article is written in a neutral way.

​But creating an article is not as simple as it sounds. Wikipedia has a legion of administrators who control all content in real-time and thus avoid the publication of falsehoods. As a consequence, it is more laborious to include new entries -especially if they are branded- in the famous online encyclopedia. From our experience we can provide a series of recommendations to carry out this work:

1. Collaborate. Wikipedia identifies users who sneak content simply because of interests or with the intention of satirizing in a humorous way.  It is essential to give life to user activity on Wikipedia, frequently contributing valuable content or complementing those already created.  The opportunism of creating a user to edit a single entry will be identified and will harm what was created.
2. Consult and do a study. It is important to know if there are similar articles in several languages.  In this way, you can analyze the structure offered by similar topics or even that compete with each other.
3. Dialogue. As it is an open content portal, the admission or not of a topic will depend in part on the interpretation of the administrators and users, it is important to document the need for that article and listen to a point by point to the impediments that may exist.
4. ​Be concise. It is preferable to write a piece of medium length using existing templates and let it “evolve” with subsequent editions than to put a lot of messy or unverified information.
5. Appointment. A good article will be one that links each of its contents to references, both from Wikipedia itself and external.  Journalism is fundamental for Wikipedia since the content has to be of quality because it remains as a reference.  It is important that when writing the information that they are as true as possible and without any type of errors.  News must be created in the media and references to studies will add credibility to the speech.  It is essential to provide credible versions for and against the subject being edited.

There are many aspects to take into account when uploading content to Wikipedia, including the complexity of the editor.