Web users rely on community-contributed-content sites such as Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers. These sites enable you to communicate directly with an engaged audience. But contribute to the conversation with care. Too much spin and you’re credibility will be shot-and your brand damaged. You’ll come away from this session knowing how these influential sites work and how to participate constructively.
Moderator:
Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land
Speakers:
- Lise Broer “Durova”, Administrator, Wikipedia
- Jonathan Hochman, Founder/President, Hochman Consultants
- Matt McGee, SEO Manager, Marchex
- Stephan Spencer, Founder & President, Netconcepts
- Don Steele, Director of Digital & Enterprise Marketing, Comedy Central
First Up: Matt McGee
Yahoo Answers
You create a profile page with link to your website
- links are nofollow
Audience Reach
- US: 21 million
- World: 95 million users
Professionals are welcome
- you are encouraged to market your business - if you are a professional
- You are allowed to link to your site if it is helpful
His Blog:
- highest source of new visitors
- Lowest source of bounces
Search Traffic
- Yahoo answers ranks in search engines
How to use Yahoo Answers
- Every category has a feed
- sort wisely
- make sure you sign your name
- don’t spam: there is a strong community review process
Next up: Jonathan Hochman
Wikipedia
- digg is great, but Wikipedia has much more visibility
(the graph displayed at this time shows a wide difference)
Marketing
- is OK if you answer questions, interact with editors
- Don’t Advertise, write about yourself, or
The fundamental rule of all social marketing is “don’t be a dick”
Top Newbie Mistakes
- don’t use a product or business name as your username
- don’t violate copyright
- don’t write about yourself or your company
Spamming is a bad idea
- other websites use Wikipedia’s blacklist to filter out spam
- therefore, being blacklisted at Wikipedia can blacklist you at thousands of other sites as well
- IP addresses are not private
The Power of Wiki
- Your audience does the marketing
- Content spreads virally
- Participating can improve your reputation
Next Up: Stephan Spencer
How do you get your edits to “stick”?
- Be a “virtuous” marketer
- develop your profile and user page
- add valuable content as the same time as you add links
- communicate with the main editor
- you can negotiate with them: “I had an idea for this section of the site.. what do you think?”. If they give you the thumbs up, it might stick
- Use References to substantiate your claim
Create New Entries
- you need to have street cred by logging in with a “virtuous account”
Clear the “Notability” Hurdle
- establish notability if you are covering a smaller organization
- press releases don’t generally help establish notability
- you can’t work on the page if you work for that company, but you can participate in the “talk” page as it’s being built
- Awards may or may not help
- Wikipedia also relies on friends: the more, the better
- Watch pages you are interested in
Playing the Game
Tools:
- Wiki Scanner: tracks edits by IP address - everything you do in Wikipedia can be tracked, even years later
Next Up: Don Steele
What they do
They look at everywhere Comedy Central has been mentioned and paying attention
- South Park has over 150 pages - each episode, each character, etc. Whereas Mahatma Ghandi has 1 page
- if your brand is on Wikipedia, you have to understand what people are saying about you
- what are they saying about your products
- when people are on their shows, the Daily Show and Colbert Report shows up in their Wikipedia entry
- Wikipedia is free traffic
Things they don’t do
- edit their own pages
- add promotions, etc. to Wikipedia
Summary
- Monitor traffic from Wikipedia
- Don’t edit your own pages
Next up: Lise Broer
Example:
- A person began adding information on a company
- a VERY long discussion ensued in which the person responded to accusations of spam with general sales responses
- When the IP was tracked, it was traced back to the company
- eventually, editing of the company page was disabled, as well as doubt cast on the neutrality of the article
Volunteers get jaded
- when they see too much spam, they begin to expect the worst