Interesting … RT @tdefren Wikipedia 101 for Marketing « PR-Squared [link to post]

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Wikipedia 101 For Marketing [link to post] #wikipediamarketing

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RT @tdefren Wikipedia 101 for Marketing [link to post]

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Reading @TDefren – Wikipedia 101 for Marketing [link to post]

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As an example, you may want to check out an article of mine that (while not paid for) is fairly typical of my work:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Fuel_Gas

Does it read too much like a brochure? I don’t think so. Do you learn anything new within the article? I certainly did. Is it properly sourced? Better than most Wikipedia pages.

@Gregory – I understand the people you are talking about have certain connections within Wikipedia. For the rest of us the rules still remain the same – if you are writing a promo copy or don’t have enough sources to support what you are saying, your article will be questioned and probably deleted. And as a social media user, I kinda like it. When I go to Wikipedia I want to learn something and not read an online version of your brochure.

You’re recommending to your readers that they tie one arm behind their backs and “play nice”, while their competitors engage Wikipedia in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY the co-founder and his insiders engage the project — to their own self-interested benefit.

That’s bad advice to your readers, at least in a capitalist economy.

Final note: don’t fall into the tired old pablum which states that “paid content is not as high quality or of good use to the average reader as voluntarily-written content”. I assure you, Wikipedia readers are much better served by a paid-entity seeding an article about Company XYZ, than relying on the “volunteer community” to launch (perhaps next week, perhaps next month, perhaps never!) an article about Company XYZ, or (even worse) promptly writing a garbage article that contains false information, an undue quantity of criticism, and a complete misunderstanding of the business.

Right now, the Wikipedia article about [[Comcast]] has a “Category” at the bottom which states:

Companies based in Mississippi

Oh, really? Yeah, I guess Comcast is based in Mississippi in the same way it’s based in Illinois, and Georgia, and Massachusetts, and Arizona, but those states aren’t similarly categorized around the Comcast article.

About seven days ago, I informed the “Wikipedia community volunteers” of how misleading this is (to define Comcast as “based in Mississippi”), but their effort to correct this perplexing information was half-hearted and ultimately not resolved.

If they fail on something this simple to correct, how do you think they will do on something really important and contentious?

Yet, you would prefer beating your head against the Wikipedia wall, abiding by their rules that their leaders habitually ignore? Good luck with that.

Seems to me communicators could approach working with Wikipedia in the same way. Would you be embarrassed if the NYTimes did a story about you correcting a false account of your company/client? Likely not, nor would the Times likely even think it was newsworthy.

Now, if you had a crisis situation going on and you were actively editing Wiki to control the story, I could see that as very embarrassing.

As always, a little common sense goes a long way.

@John – You made my point to Ed Lee better than I did, and I thank you for it!