by Jeff Harmon
on Dec 29th, 2006

6 Steps to Appropriately place your Business on Wikipedia

Creating an appropriate post to Wikipedia will take you some time. Here is how I did it.

Everything begins with research:

  1. Register with Wikipedia and study their suggested readings (takes about 30 minutes):

    The five pillars of Wikipedia
    How to edit a page
    Help pages
    Tutorial
    How to write a great article
    Manual of Style

  2. Find and read about other companies related your company. Note what you like about the articles and what you don’t like. I am a very visual person so this helped me more than the tutorials.
  3. You can learn the basic write up language for Wikipedia in a short time, but I suggest that you snatch an article that someone else has already posted and then click “edit this page” and copy out all their content. You can now use this content as a template for your posting. Replace their text with your text, their images with your images, and their links with your links. In the end you will have created a well organized article.
  4. Properly site any content you use.
  5. External Links: You can link them to official pages on your website, your blog, and recent articles about your website. These links are very valuable so choose them carefully and make sure that they are appropriate to the cause of Wikipedia.
  6. Don’t sell ANYTHING. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The greatest danger of writing your own article is that you are partial to your business. Be careful.

Each post you make is just the beginning. Over time others will refine your article and correct your mistakes.  Please comment if you have had experience with Wikipedia.

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4 Responses to “6 Steps to Appropriately place your Business on Wikipedia”

  1. on 29 Dec 2006 at 3:41 am # mark

    all that is well and good but I think you missed one of wikipedias first and ironclad rules: you cannott post your own site. Period.

  2. on 29 Dec 2006 at 6:34 pm # Jeff Harmon

    Mark,

    Thanks for the incite. I did over look that the guidelines are to “avoid” posting about your own company - I am learning.

    But I should note that it “is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception.” and that “If the rules prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore them.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vanity_page

    I am not saying that you are wrong. But some would argue that in an open source situation, an appropriate posting of your own business could often improve wikipedia, giving others a start for writing about who you are.

  3. on 29 Dec 2006 at 11:48 pm # Albert Ross

    Erm… you could try putting the site up at http://www.aboutus.org/ which is a wiki for all websites.

    One “rule” you forgot to mention is once you have spammed Wp it is a bad idea to blog it and then get that entry covered by Digg.

    Spamming Wp is for people who understand the meaning of “subtle” and “viral”.

  4. on 31 Dec 2006 at 3:52 am # Jeff Harmon

    Thanks for the info on aboutus.org. Looks like a great idea.

    It is funny that I spammed Wp and then was dense enough to post it on digg. I believe in being very transparent, but I am learning a few lessons. I am just thankful that I am learning some important lessons before our company has grown too much.

    Thanks to those of you who kindly teach me.

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