The common thing in the modern world is that it uses anything at its disposal for marketing. From the era of newspaper to the dawn of Television, humankind has always found new ways to promote or advertise. From town criers to modern social media, history is filled with instances where man has used various methods to promote or advertise.
That is why it should not come as a surprise that humans have started using Wikipedia as one of the most vital marketing tools. The largest encyclopaedia has become one of the prominent tools for brands or companies with recognition. It does not only provide legitimacy to a name but being featured on it is considered an honour among the masses. However, the list of benefits is for another time. Today, we are going to be looking at the necessary steps to ensure your brand’s presence on Wikipedia. Therefore, without delaying it further, here we go.
Steps To Create A Wikipedia Page For A Company
1- Create An Account
The first step in order to create a Wikipedia page for a business is to sign up. An account on Wikipedia is a necessity if you want to go through the entire process without any troubles. Keep in mind that you need to build a reputation first, but we will come to that later. However, in order to do that, you need an account for a number of reasons. One, you need it to keep track of all your actions, edits et cetera. Wikipedia has a compelling dashboard for its users and it allows you to keep close track of your activity.
Moreover, you are not allowed to make certain edits or changes if you do not have an account. Therefore, go to Wikipedia and look for account sign up. It is an easy process that requires email verification and it should not take more than 10 minutes.
2- Make Edits
As mentioned above, you need to establish credibility before you dive into page creation. How will Wikipedia know your provided information can be trusted? They do not. That is why you need to establish your name in their forums. Keep in mind that they have a system that can track accounts and even IPs if you make bogus or unwarranted changes. Keep it only to the bare necessity and only change things you think require editing.
3- Research & Study
If you are not doing it for your business or someone you know well, then it is high time that you expanded your knowledge regarding them. The thing about Wikipedia is that they have zero-tolerance for false or bogus claims. If a company is not up to their standards of notability or noteworthiness, chances are their page will never see the light of day. How do you ensure that does not happen? By establishing the company as a credible entity. You can do so by having articles made, press releases or any third-party news that acknowledges a company or brand.
That is why it is important to study and research your subject before you make a page for them. Find the right citations from credible sources. As it would be vital in page submission and review, but we will come to that later.
4- Create The Page
The first step after you have established credibility and gathered important information is to find out whether a page already exists in the name. In the case of uniqueness, it may not so you will have to create one. If you search for the page and it does not exist, Wikipedia will provide you with the option to “ask for it to be created”. Click it, and it will guide you through the small process of Wikipedia page creation. Once it is up, you will jump on to content creation.
5- Create Content
Once you have created the page with Wikipedia Article Wizard, you move forward towards writing the page. Now, keep in mind that Wikipedia warrants an unbiased approach. Therefore, your style must be NPOV aka neutral point of view. Your sentences need to be short and formal and you need to bear in mind that the sole purpose is to convey information. Therefore, any sort of biased or prejudiced approach can put your entire page creation in jeopardy.
6- Provide Citations
As you move throughout the article, keep in mind that any sort of third party information needs to be citrated. Refrain from making bogus claims or provide information that is not backed by a credible source. If that is not a problem, then provide citation wherever needed. The requirement may arise when and if you use quotes and such.
7- Submit The Page
Once the writing is out of the way, you need to submit your page for a review. Wikipedia experts will thoroughly scrutinize and ensure the legitimacy of the information provided. If you did all of the above steps properly, then you will have a page created in no time. However, if there are problems or something Wikipedia finds unusual, you will be provided with the option to fix them.
8- Editing & Management
Information, specifically statistic related, is bound to change with passing time. In such instance, your Wikipedia page will have to be updated overtime. As new developments and changes arise, make sure that you are right on time to make those edits and amendments. You would have learned of this future properly during the earlier phases where you were establishing credibility.
