While many businesses are focused on their website and their social media channels, many often overlook their presence on Wikipedia. This can apply to both the business and its senior executives, especially if it is a publicly-traded company.

A company’s Wikipedia article, if they have one, often trades between the first and second place with their main website. This means that the article needs to stay consistently updated. Oftentimes people trust Wikipedia more than they trust the main website because the viewpoint is that of a company’s website.

Now, it isn’t necessarily easy to have a Wikipedia article accepted and isn’t just an automatic for anyone that wants to submit one. Here are a few keys:

What it takes to have a Wikipedia article accepted

• Substantial in-depth coverage in third-party (journalistic) sources

• 5 in-depth sources focusing specifically on the topic are needed

• It helps if the topic has been identified in sourcing as unique in some way (first, best, biggest, longest, etc)

• Write your suggestion in an encyclopedic tone and following established style in Wikipedia

If your article fits the above criteria, then you need to understand what can and cannot be included in your Wikipedia article as you begin drafting it.

What can and cannot be included in your Wikipedia article

• Must be supported by reliable, published sources and verifiable by using citations

• Information cannot be copied company materials or third-party sources

• Wikipedia doesn’t allow for the use of two (or more) sources together to form a conclusion not stated explicitly in any of the sources

The next step is to submit it to Wikipedia editors to be reviewed and then approved for publishing. There are several considerations when working with Wikipedia editors:

How to work with Wikipedia Editors

• Respect is key; editors are volunteers

• You must disclose a conflict of interest is necessary

• Don’t edit directly, make request (not demands)

• Be patient and persistent

If your article is accepted and published, the next step is monitoring it for any changes. Here are a few reasons why this is so important.

Why monitoring your Wikipedia article is so important

• Articles > Editors = difficult to address problematic edits/vandalism

• Editors focus attention on articles that interest them, which usually doesn’t include company pages

• Subtle but damaging edits can be hard to identify

Similar to generating traffic to your website, incoming links from other Wikipedia pages will help to generate more pageviews. And , of course, just like having your book listed in key areas or your podcast listed on the main sections of iTunes, if your Wikipedia article makes it onto the main page it will dramatically increase pageviews during that period of time.

A cool tool that Wikipedia provides is the ability to see two different searches over a specified period of time.

Not only does this show what article(s) receives more pageviews on a daily basis but it also shows the total number of pageviews, edits, and other interesting stats for all articles that are added to the search.

Some of this may seem overwhelming, especially drafting and submitting the article, as well as working with the editors. If you don’t have someone on your team that has a deep un