[WikiEN-l] Using Wikipedia as a Marketing Tool

[Carcharoth]

On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 4:45 PM, WereSpielChequers
<werespielchequers at gmail.com> wrote:
> One of those steps being "Check to see if anyone already working at
> your company is a Wikipedia volunteer. If so, that person can be a
> valuable resource to help you find your best strategy for getting
> included." Now that sounds like a pretty good reason not to talk about
> this particular hobby at work, or to edit in your real name.

I agree absolutely! I'm fortunate in that where I work doesn't have a
Wikipedia entry, though there are sporadic mentions within other
articles (one red-link, one dead link in a reference, one external
link, and one incidental mention). I would be horrified if I was ever
approached to "help" with anything Wikipedia-related to where I work.
I have, sometimes, looked up some of the people I occasionally
correspond with, or who crop up during the course of my work, and some
of them have Wikipedia articles, but most don't.

The article also says "The more mentions you have in the press, and
the more visibility you have in social media and blogs". This
completely misunderstands what a reliable source is and the difference
between having a big (and usually temporary) media presence, and an
enduring presence that generates its own press. There is a difference
between media puffery of a company and independent, industry-wide
evaluation by those with an interest in getting things right (and not
just putting spin on things) - this is usually related to "getting
things right" in terms of investing in or taking over a business.

They also miss the most obvious method. Grow your company until it is
so big that it will get an article anyway.

The brutal truth is, that if you are a small company, unless you get
big you will either not amount to much (and end up as a footnote in
history, if that), or you will get big and get taken over, or take
others over, or you will fold and vanish. The real test of enduring
notability in business is whether a company or brandname is remembered
after it has gone or been swallowed up by others. If no-one remembers
much about something 5 years later, it probably wasn't worth writing
about in the first place, unless it endured for several decades at
least or did something that garnered a lot of attention, and maybe not
even then.

Carcharoth