How to Market on Wikipedia, Social Media’s Knowledge Channel

If your company does not have a page on Wikipedia, you should shoot fire scold your marketing director and demote your SMG (social media guru) to SMF (social media flunky).

Wikipedia is in the Knowledge category/channel of social media and a powerful respected resource to consumers. (for other social media channels, See Does Size Matter in Social Media..?)

In addition, Wikipedia ranks high in the Google SERPS (search engine results pages).

TIP: Because Wikipedia ranks very high on Google for cities, towns and neighborhoods, a real estate agent or broker could add their relevant web page as an External Link. [NOTE: Before you go hog wild on Wikipedia entries and links, make sure to read this.]

Here’s an example from the Garland, Texas entry on Wikipedia:

The highlighted area links to this real estate agent’s website. Smart fella.

Are any of the real estate web portals using Wikipedia links on cities, towns, neighborhoods, etc. to drive traffic to their websites? If they are seeding links in these entries, it is truly a sneaky way to usurp agents and brokers’ websites— with the agents and brokers own content! Bad kitty. Any real estate Deep Throats know if this is being done?

Technorati Tags: real estate marketing, wikipedia, search, selltoon, sellsius

SarahGray Lamm

Now we'll see if the admin thinks this is an appropriate way to use Wikipedia!
http://twitpic.com/h59di/full

I'm giving it 10 minutes...but a well deserved 10 minutes!

Ken Montville

I firs heard about this concept at the REBCVA and didn't act on it.

Having read this post (prior to the comments) I added an external link to my blog and website in a couple of towns I work in. I noticed one town in particular has another blog but it was more of a general information/opinion nature not real estate specific.

I may check back on Wikipedia from time to time to see if they are still there. However, I'm not one to push the envelope as SarahGray Lamm did in pursuing a link.

I suppose I could write a neighborhood article and insert a link in there to see if it stuck. Dunno that I have the energy.

SarahGray Lamm

My exchange with the admin...

User talk:Wayfur
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Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Wikipedia is not a collection of links; nor should it be used for advertising or promotion, and doing so is contrary to the goals of this project. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. OhNoitsJamie Talk 18:35, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi Jamie! Not questioning your wisdom, simply responding...A very respectable blogger has, today, posted the concept of Real Estate Information by city as a Wikipedia external link so this will not be the first one you (or other admins) see. It would be nice if the ban on the concept of giving folks a place to find relevant and grouped access to local real estate info, if it is provided by a company engaged in the real estate business, is universal on Wikipedia, if that is the way it is to be interpreted ...I did know it was not going to be adding SEO to anything so that was not the goal. Sadly, most of the really good and relevant content on local real estate (something folks are very interested in) will generally be provided by someone with an interest in it....free market and all that stuff...Thanks for listening! Wayfur (talk) 21:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising. OhNoitsJamie Talk 22:11, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Got it! Wayfur (talk) 22:14, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

jfsellsius

Yes, I know what you mean. Some of these admins appear to be biased --some links can stay and some they boot-- and it's difficult to reconcile their actions. They seem to have little problem letting companies (and individuals) put up pages, but hassle editors, especially critics. Just my opinion, based on my experience with an admin that kept removing my link to unzill....able in the Z wikipedia page criticism section.

I had to lay it out in the discussion page to keep it there.

http://tr.im/xLPQ

External links routinely go to chambers of commerce. Why not factual information pages on a city, town or neighborhood?

The answer may be to create a page on a neighborhood and add the external link there.

SarahGray Lamm

Not so fast...I think it probably depends on the admin but mine came off in just a few hours. I had linked it to a company page chock full of info on the area in question, not a personal page. Not even considered...a link to any advertising...canned it!

startabuzz

Whomever's going to try this also oughtta be aware of Wikipedia's new guidelines and restrictions about who can post, as well as how the information gets approved: http://bzzz.in/1l