What You Need to Know to Get a Wikipedia Article Published

What You Need to Know to Get a Wikipedia Article Published. Since 2001, Wikipedia’s community of volunteer editors has created more than 5 million pages, many of them found on Google’s first page of search results for that topic. To be eligible, your company needs an interesting story about what it has achieved, and it must be a story that’s been told by working journalists. Credible news sources are a must. Evaluating sources A good early step is to identify all the information about your company in the news. But be careful of creating a page similar to your competitors’ Wikipedia pages – just because they’re published doesn’t mean they’re good. Creating an account Once you have a draft, you need to communicate with Wikipedia editors. Next, you’ll need to declare your conflict of interest (COI) – your precise connection to the subject of the article. But if you can figure out Wikipedia’s sourcing requirements, internalize its style points, and learn the process for writing and submitting an entry, you can help make Wikipedia better and tell your brand’s story at the same time. Let the Content Marketing Institute help “unconfuse” you – whether it’s about Wikipedia, measurement, great content, or more.

Author: William Beutler / Source: Content Marketing Institute

Since 2001, Wikipedia’s community of volunteer editors has created more than 5 million pages, many of them found on Google’s first page of search results for that topic. Wikipedia’s ubiquity bestows upon it the ability to lend its credibility to other subjects, which is attractive for companies and organizations who crave recognition.

But Wikipedia’s volunteer editors are focused on building a serious encyclopedia, and not so interested in helping a brand’s content marketing plan. If you want to create an entry about a company (or any topic related to your business), you need to understand what Wikipedia is looking for and the right way to go about it. This post describes the process at a high level, but it’s only a starting point – follow the links within to learn more before you try.

Determining eligibility

Before all else, you need to determine whether your company meets Wikipedia’s eligibility requirements or, as Wikipedia refers to it, notability, which is admittedly rather judgmental. (No one wants to hear “Sorry, you’re not notable.”) The hard truth is that most companies don’t immediately qualify, and trying to create a page in these circumstances can be immensely frustrating. So what qualifies, and what if you’re not there yet?

To be eligible, your company needs an interesting story about what it has achieved, and it must be a story that’s been told by working journalists. Wikipedia is not a place for self-published information, but instead what others have written about your brand. Credible news sources are a must. Press releases and company websites just don’t cut it, and for the most part can’t be used.

Evaluating sources

A good early step is to identify all the information about your company in the news. Has a big city newspaper or trade publication written about your business model, your founding story, or market position relative to competitors? Does it make a clear case why your company is doing something interesting or unusual? If you have several articles like this, great – you’re in the hunt. If you don’t, save yourself time dealing with Wikipedia and pursue a PR strategy to earn that in-depth coverage.

Identifying credible news coverage is tricky: national publications are most valuable, but many media outlets these days publish online contributor blog posts. Forbes, for example, has a contributor network that looks official but is not written by Forbes journalists. These contributions are not deemed as credible sources by Wikipedia. Also, a large number of brief mentions do not add up to in-depth coverage nor do frequent quotes from your founder or key employees count toward notability.

Writing the draft

Before you write, refer to Wikipedia’s lengthy and exacting Manual of Style governing how content should be presented. A good place to start is the entry about your first article.

Organize your draft in successive paragraphs as follows: