Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Using Wikipedia to Promote Yourself!



 

Given the effort required to contribute to Wikipedia and follow the many rules and restrictions, why would anyone (especially a business) take the time to become a respected member of the Wikipedia community? The answer is simple--it is establishes you as an online authority and helps endow you with credibility in specific subject categories.

To achieve this status, however, you should keep in mind that the bottom line is to contribute, don't spam.  

The following resources offer tips, guidelines, and suggestions how to become an accomplished Wikipedian, along some words of caution:

10 comments:

  1. Love the "Sixteen tips for becoming a respected wikipedian" - great advice!

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  2. Mark--you are most welcome. That is a particularly tasty article, with some real insights for becoming a respected wikipedian.

    Melissa

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  3. The initial idea of using Wikipedia to promote a business deterred me completely. In the "upper classman" years of high school it was suggested to not use Wikipedia because it isn't credible. The same idea has been beaten into me by college professors. So naturally I thought, "why would I want to be affiliated with such a thing."
    I work in a locally owned restaurant so when reading the articles I was trying to put correlate the two and after a while found some success. I believe the most important factor is maintaining activity of the page and be willing to accept editor opinions. However I do feel that building up status in the Wiki community is a little bit of a waste as far as advertizing a local restaurant is concerned. There is already enough to do in a day as far as running the show. Promoting it takes time and money. Playing on the internet seems like it is too excessive for something so small. Over all the idea of promoting via Wikipedia is something I obviously never would have thought of and now I believe I will suggest it to the owner.
    -Natasha Burdette

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  4. I do not understand why a company would want to advertise on wikipedia. When I was in school they grilled it into our little heads that this site is not to be used because we cannot verify the answers it gives. The same thing is happening incollege I am noticing. So I just do not understand why anyone would want to advertise in a place that no one is suppose to use for their school work.

    Darcy L. Eigenbrood

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  5. Hi Darcy,

    You raise important point, namely, one should NOT advertise on Wikipedia. However, one can promote yourself by establishing a reputation as an authority on a subject or subjects.

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  6. I think it is such weird advice to promote your business on Wikipedia. I was taught all throughout school to never use Wikipedia as a source, so in my mind this would be the last place I would want to put information on my business. I know that I am not the only one who was taught the flaws of Wikipedia and I think it actually has a pretty bad rep going for it. Maybe it’s not the best place to get information for a paper you are writing, but perhaps it can be used in an effective way if in the correct manor.

    After reading How to Promote Your Company in Wikipedia it is made clear that it is a situation that you put your business in and have no control over. Understanding the rules of Wikipedia is important, because it is clearly written out what can and can’t happen on this website. You need to be able to overcome some obstacles that you might encounter if someone goes on and changes the information that you submitted. Also, if someone has already has posted something about your business or company you are able to go in and change things that you might think alter what people will read when looking at your information. I think the main thing that needs to be done is just making sure that you keep tabs on what is being posted about your business. People can change things on your page, but you are also capable of changing them as well. This is obviously a method of promotion that will take a lot of time and effort, but if a company is willing to put that kind of time into it why not give it a try.

    -Krysten Carl

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  7. I really like this article. For the amount that I use Wikipedia (probably almost every day, actually), I've never really considered that it could potentially be very valuable to become a trusted source of information. Many, many people use this site just as much, if not more than I do... so it's definitely a site worth building a good reputation on.

    But what I really appreciate about this article is that it points out that what you SHOULD NOT do is advertise. Building a positive, trust-worthy reputation based on quality information is much, much more valuable in this case. People don't want spam on this site, they want their questions answered concisely, detailed, informatively, and accurately.

    Good article overall.

    Mackenzie R.

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  8. I believe that this article has a good intention on trying to encourage business to use Wikipedia a positive resource not a negative one. But personally I do not ever trust anything I read on the simply because anyone can post on there which means there is a lot of spam.

    They say directly in the article not to contribute to the amount of spam on the website but I think that even if so many people are trying to help it still isnt everyone so everything there is not reliable. Not trying to be negative about this approach I do think it would be nice if this website were reliable but honestly it is not.

    Jalisa Andreasen

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  9. The sixteen tips were very helpful and should be followed by wikipedia users. I believe that must of us have ended up on Wikepedia at one time or another. This usually happens as a result of using a search engine. Though the information on wikipedia can be less than credible, as a result of people not following the 16 tips, it can at times provide the information that you are looking for.

    Wikipedia, and wiki-answers become a spawning ground for young people to give false answers in an effort to be funny. I must admit that even I had a few chuckles at doing this in the past. I believe that Wiki-answers still gives me credit for inventing words such as: "invented," and "word." A guy that I know is the greatest viking to ever live and invented the word "gold" according to Wiki-answers. If users followed the 16 tips given in this post, and stop trying to be funny, it could really become a valuable asset to society.

    -Robert Smith-Anderson

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  10. Therefore sites that use NoFollow in their outbound links are gems for link building. niche relevant backlinks

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