Businesses tap into marketing possibilities of Wikipedia
By Bill Simpson
Central Penn Business Journal
May 25, 2007

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that allows anyone to create an article or to edit an existing one, provides worldwide visibility for businesses, people, places and events. Boasting 1.78 million articles written in English, Wikipedia is an astoundingly large source of information.

According to Alexa’s top 500 Web sites, Wikipedia is the eighth most-visited site (Yahoo! is No. 1), and it offers marketing opportunities for businesses. That doesn’t mean that a business can post an advertisement. By definition, Wikipedia articles must be “just the facts,” so businesses have strict limitations on how they can write about themselves.

Writers’ guidelines for Wikipedia include this requirement: All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly and without bias all significant views that have been published by reliable sources.

That guideline effectively prohibits traditional advertising copy. While a business might post an article that portrays the business in glowing terms, the article probably wouldn’t last long because anyone can edit a Wikipedia article, and because administrators have the ability to remove articles that fail to meet the guidelines.

A look at the Wikipedia entry for the “Strasburg Railroad” might lead a reader to believe that the entry is the creation of an advertising agency or of an employee of the railroad. The listing has extensive information about the railroad, color pictures and a link to the railroad’s official Web site. But the site actually contains all information and no marketing for the railroad.

Katie Stafford is public-relations coordinator for Scheffey Integrated Marketing in Lancaster, the agency that handles advertising and other marketing efforts for the railroad. Scheffey did not create the railroad’s Wikipedia entry, Stafford said.

“Some rail fans built that site,” she said. “Rail fans are so supportive.”

According to Wikipedia, a rail fan or rail buff is an amateur who is strongly interested in railroads. Excessively enthusiastic rail fans are sometimes referred to pejoratively as “foamers,” especially by American rail workers, in reference to the joking notion that they foam at the mouth in their excitement over train operations.

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