Should brands care about Wikipedia? Why?

Short answer: YES! Brand managers and communications professionals should definitely care about Wikipedia! 

If you want to make sure clear, accurate information about your brand appears in search, Wikipedia is key to that. 

Simply put, search engine algorithms just love Wikipedia because:

✅ It’s content-rich.

✅ It inter-links. 

✅ Lots of reliable sites link into it.

The result of this SEO supremacy is that a brand Wikipedia article will appear very high in search results, oftentimes right below your company website. 

Wikipedia is also one of the key sources for the Google Knowledge Graph, which often powers voice search (think: Siri, Alexa, and Ask Google). That first sentence of your Wikipedia article then becomes the first impression of your company for many audiences, including investors, reporters, and potential hires.

The way Wikipedia summarizes information also makes it a top choice for anyone trying to quickly find facts and figures, or reference a historical milestone for a brand. It’s a lot easier for people to find that information than on your own company website, where it might be split over different pages or only mentioned within an annual report they need to download. It’s due to this that journalists often reference Wikipedia when getting up-to-date or looking for a snippet for a news report.

This is a double-edged sword for brands. Wikipedia can be a fantastic resource for folks looking for information about you and it can lend legitimacy. On the other hand, if the details are wrong, there is a bias toward only criticism or information hasn’t been updated, it can easily give the wrong impression of your brand. 

All of this means that if you manage a brand that has a Wikipedia article (or several), Wikipedia should be on your radar. You want to be sure that the information that people are finding is correct. 

At the same time, it should be viewed as being a neutral and educational source, not an opportunity for promotion. The site has strong rules about keeping its content encyclopedic and non-promotional.