An Introduction to Wikipedia for MarketersDavid KingOwner and Wikipedian, Ethical Wiki

Your Presenter

• ~38,000 edits over 7 years

• >30% of Wikipedia’s bestcompany articles

• Consultant for brands, people,non-profits and more

Agenda

• Why Wikipedia

• Why not Wikipedia

• Our approach

Why Wikipedia

• Top 10 in 96% of searches

• Top result in 56% of searches

• More educated readers than Twitter and LinkedIn combined

• Have you used Wikipedia?

Why Wikipedia

*Based on more than 2,500 articles

High; 2%

Mid; 13%

Low; 85%

Quality

Top; 2%

High; 8%Mid; 23%

Low; 67%

Importance

Why Not

*Based on more than 2,500 articles

Bias; 15%

Other; 14%

Quality; 16%

Outdated; 4%

Citations; 51%

Problems

Why Not

Good f

aith

Conflic

t of In

teres

t

Useful

edits

*Based on more than 100 assessments provided by Ethical Wiki

Why Not• PR agencies• The Vatican• The Mormon Church• Amnesty International• The FBI• The Church of Scientology• Exxon• Microsoft• Apple• Coca-Cola• Disney• Wal-Mart• The Guardian

• Nestle• Pepsi• Diebold• The CIA• Anheuser-Busch• ChevronTexaco• Dell Computers• MySpace• EA Games• Fox News• Sony• British Petroleum

Ethics

Legal

Wikipedia policy

Principles

Our Approach

• Bias and misinformation run unchecked

• Quality of Wikipedia pages remain low

Hands-off

• Requires patience and expertise

• Offers a safer approach for improvements

Talk page strategies • Risk of vengeful

editing from angry Wikipedians

• Risk of media exposure

Anonymous Direct editing

Content

• Sources

• Notability

• Neutrality

• Misc

• Common pitfalls

• Images

The end

Questions?