Presented by Kasey R. Baker and Frank C. Jones of The Wiki Wizards ( www.TheWikiWizards.com ), both former Regional Coordinators for Wikipedia’s Education Program, this lecture will have a little bit of something for everyone looking to participate on Wikipedia. Newcomers will be able to understand why Wikipedia content is important, how it can help their organizations, and how to begin to use Wikipedia as a marketing tool. Seasoned veterans of Wikipedia editing can expect to take away some tips for improving the content for their organizations already on Wikipedia. Regardless of where you may fall, The Wiki Wizards are here to help you and your organization.

1. The Wiki-Wizards presents
How to Make your Organization
Wikipedia Official: Insider Tips, Tricks,
and Strategies
Kasey R. Baker Frank C. Jones
@TheWikiWizards

2. Why Should you Care about
Wikipedia?
1. 6th
most viewed website in the world
2. Legitimacy for your organization
3. Featured in Google Knowledge Graph
4. Competitive advantage over your competition
5. Staying power of information on Wikipedia
@TheWikiWizards

3. 521,872,733 Wikipedia April 2015 home page hits
What do Readers do when they get to Wikipedia:
Search for an article
Read the introduction
Browse the outline
Skim for important sections
Click through the sources for additional information
- These sources can be your articles!
Drive Traffic to your Site
@TheWikiWizards

4. ● Your company must have things that are
noteworthy
○ Having a news organization publish about your
accomplishments
● It’s not easy to get an article to stick on Wikipedia
○ But once it's on Wikipedia, it's hard to remove
● This exclusivity community builds legitimacy
because so few companies can get on Wikipedia
Legitimacy and Noteworthy
@TheWikiWizards

5. Competitive Advantage
http://www.google.com/search?q=robert+a+clifford
@TheWikiWizards

6. Why is it so hard to get into
Wikipedia?
● It’s an encyclopedia, not a marketing channel
● The content is published under an open license
○ You don’t own the content
○ You can’t control what others publish
○ Sometimes negative things can be published
● Avoid marketing jargon, bias, and sales pitch of
any type
● It’s difficult to define what’s “notable”
○ Every line of text must be published by a news
source and cited
@TheWikiWizards

7. Revenue for your Business
All this boils down to income, publishing on Wikipedia
can boost your revenue when done correctly.
● Website Traffic
● Search results
● Competitive advantage
● While links on Wikipedia are no-follow, you can still
boost SEO with increased traffic and social sharing
@TheWikiWizards

8. Nobody likes Spam
● When marketing departments work on articles for
Wikipedia, the content sounds like an infomercial.
● Forget about keywords, persuasive arguments,
and colorful languages.
● Every statement needs to be backed up with a
quality source from a news outlet
● Be anonymous with your user name, i.e. NOT
“JoeThePlumberMarketer”
@TheWikiWizards

9. How to become “Notable”
1. Do something worthy of press coverage (events,
service projects, major accomplishments, ...)
2. Publish a press release
3. Use social networks, or hire a PR firm, to get
media coverage
4. Add this coverage to an ongoing file for future
citation
5. Repeat steps 1 through 4 until “notable”
This helps your business even if you don't build a
Wikipedia article
@TheWikiWizards

10. Tricks for Writing your first Article
1. Start small. A few lines or even a short article.
5,000 - 10,000 characters of wiki-code max.
2. Backup every statement with a quality citation
3. Don’t worry about keywords and other content
marketing requirements. Anyone should
understand what you have written.
4. Before you write a new article, find places in
Wikipedia to add dead links to the future article
○ Someone may find these dead links and write
the article for you, then you can expand it with
edits
@TheWikiWizards

11. Tips for Handling Conflicts with
Wikipedian
● Always remain anonymous
○ Don’t give them any ammunition to claim you
have a bias toward the subject of your article
● Focus on the facts of the article
● Avoid opinions and ground your arguments with
citations
● Get to know other Wikipedians that can help
○ Participate in edit-a-thons
○ Join the local user group
○ Contribute to projects outside of work
@TheWikiWizards

12. How to Drive Traffic to your Site
with Wikipedia Links
1. Find a dead link - wikigrabber.com
2. Create a great resource to replace that dead link
3. Publish your source
4. Post an update to replace the dead link on
Wikipedia
@TheWikiWizards

13. The Wiki Wizards Checklist
Go to
TheWikiWizards.com/DMFB
to download The Wiki Wizards Checklist
and get a copy of these slides
@TheWikiWizards

14. Thank You
TheWikiWizards.com
Frank C Jones - Frank@TheWikiWizards.com
Kasey R Baker - Kasey@TheWikiWizards.com
@TheWikiWizards