Having your own Wikipedia entry can have a beneficial effect on the reach of a company. With these six steps, you can create your own.
Wikipedia's entries regularly lead the search results and thus offer companies with their own entry a chance to increase their awareness.
Interesting facts about Wikipedia in Germany
The free online encyclopedia was founded in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and quickly gained popularity. Three years later, the non-profit association Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. was founded with the aim of collecting donations for the project. According to the Alexa ranking list, Wikipedia, as of October 2020, is currently in sixth place among the most frequently visited websites in Germany. With currently more than 2.4 million articles, the encyclopedia is thus much more comprehensive than Brockhaus and Co. ever were.
Create Wikipedia entry for companies: Consider relevance criteria
Wikipedia is also vulnerable to manipulation and the distribution of fake news due to its open architecture without a classical publishing structure. Companies must fulfil at least one of the following criteria in order for an entry to be approved:
Have 1,000 or more full-time employees
Achieve annual sales of over 100 million euros
Be listed on the stock exchange
Have 20 or more business premises
Hold a dominant position in the market or are considered to be a pioneer in a product group or service
Have historically met one of the above criteria
In addition, a proposal can be submitted via the Wikipedia relevance check to have it checked by one of the Wikipedia volunteers.
Six steps to your own Wikipedia entry: How it works
Companies that meet at least one of the above criteria can get their own entry in the German Wikipedia. To do so, the following steps must be completed:
1. Create a user account
If not already done, the author of the article must create a Wikipedia user account. An account is quickly created with username, password and email address. In order to create more trust, companies should be transparent about the fact that they are working on their own entry. It is a good idea to register the user account under the company name and via a company email to have it verified later.
2. Preparation of the Wikipedia entry
The article about the company can easily be prescribed in a Word document. The style of writing should be neutral and in no way promotional. General information about the company, such as facts and figures, but also its history should be covered. The structure of the entry should follow the guidelines of Wikipedia - an introduction and subheadings with index should be created. Foreign texts cannot be used, since no copyrights may be violated. Only quotations of individual text passages are permitted here, for example from press releases about the company. Once the structure has been created and the article has been filled in, proofreading by a second person is recommended.
3. Indicate sources
It is important that sources and evidence are also collected since Wikipedia entries should be well-founded and not a collection of assertions or even personal experiences. In the case of companies, sources can be annual reports for figures or newspaper articles for background information.
4. Save Wikipedia entry
If the article is written and sufficiently occupied with sources, it can be saved. Thus, the entry is not yet publicly visible but first goes into revision by one of the responsible persons at Wikipedia.
5. Classify the article
Finally, the written contribution must be sorted into suitable categories. For the beginning, one main category is usually sufficient, but finer classifications can also be useful. For example, a German shipyard founded in 1961 can be placed in the category "Shipyard (Germany)", but it also fits into the category "Founded in 1961".
6. Implement corrections
After the check by the Wikipedia staff, corrections are usually still pending. Within a few days, the author of the article receives a message telling him which corrections are necessary. These should be implemented quickly so that the entry is not deleted at some point. After the desired changes have been implemented, the article is published on Wikipedia.
Keep articles in view and deal sensitively with negative information
Companies that have successfully received an entry on Wikipedia should keep coming back after the publication. Because nothing is more annoying than false information on the net that is damaging to your reputation. On the one hand, outdated data can be changed quickly through regular checks.
Correcting does not mean that negative information can simply be deleted. As far as they have happened, scandals are also part of the company's history. Nevertheless, companies can influence how such information is presented.
Read original German article here
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