Should you compare your Wikipedia article with a competitor's?
Competitor audits are a critical part of any sales & marketing plan, especially when you're launching something new. Whether you're looking at a top rival or just peer organizations, it's important to understand strengths & weaknesses, how you compare, where you can improve, and ultimately who’s winning.
Same should apply for Wikipedia, right? Alas, that’s rarely the case.
Most Wikipedia articles are not created equally. A mix of onsite and offsite factors can essentially render two articles that cover similar topics (or similar brands) effectively impossible to assess against one another..
Of course, this won’t stop your boss or stakeholders from pulling up that competitor's article and asking you “Why can’t ours look like theirs?” or “If they can have a section about that why can’t we?”
Here’s the short answer: a Wikipedia article that’s “better” from a brand’s point of view can actually be *more* vulnerable to major edits (or even deletion in some cases). So before you bemoan your article not being as good as the next brand’s, take comfort that the other brand might be on rockier ground.
Here's the long answer: Discrepancies in the structure and content of closely related brand articles reflects two factors:
Offsite (Off Wikipedia): The other brand might just have a history of better press and PR campaigns. At the end of the day nothing can be said on Wikipedia without a third-party journalistic source by a reputable staff writer. That means that even if you and your competitor have both been in business for 30 years and done equally impressive things, if they've run 30 years of heavy PR while your company preferred to stay quiet in the media then they are certainly going to have a better Wikipedia article thanks to all that coverage.
Onsite (On Wikipedia): Wikipedia has been around for about 20 years. In that time a number of strict rule changes have been updated as the site has grown. Yet there are a limited number of active editors available to "referee" the site and ensure that content aligns with guidelines. That means that older articles created before particular rule changes may remain in place, unedited, for years before they're finally updated to reflect current best practices, and that new articles (and new sections to existing articles) are created all the time that also don't meet the site's standards. All of this content is like a SUV parked in a no parking zone— just because they're getting away with a violation right now doesn't mean you should try to do the same, as there's surely a tow truck coming at some point.
With all this in mind, Wikipedia might be one place where you need to live by the saying “comparison can be the thief of joy”.
Your competitor’s article may have content you wish yours did but they either A) have better sourcing than you or B) shouldn’t have the content in the first place.
If it’s the former, you need to work on a PR campaign of your own rather than try to force it on Wikipedia with insufficient sourcing (which will only annoy the editor community and potentially turn them against your brand). If it’s the latter, better to be the bigger person, accept the content shouldn’t exist on either of your articles, and watch with some secret joy knowing that your competitor is sitting on an active brand risk and it’s only a matter of time until their article faces potential content deletion and flags.
Have a few Wikipedia articles you want an expert eye on? Reach out to shout@luminodigital.com.
