Jump to content

Wikimedia Foundation/Communications/A Wiki Minute

Add links
From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

What is this project?

[edit]
borderless
borderless

The Wikimedia Foundation's Communications department has created a collection of short, reusable video explainers about key Wikimedia elements, concepts, and principles for the public to better understand our projects and our movement. These videos were built with the intention of being multi-purpose; they have already been used to support various communications campaigns, in addition to other Foundation staff projects and movement communications. This is a multi-year project that has resulted in 13 total videos to date—and may grow to include more.

Why are we doing it?

[edit]

When talking to audiences unfamiliar with Wikimedia, they often lack context around the movement. We want to increase understanding of our mission, projects, and organizations among these external audiences so that there is some basic knowledge around what we, the Wikimedia movement, do. We want to take viewers on a journey of understanding: starting from “I know and use Wikipedia,” to “I know what Wikimedia is and how it works” to “I want to contribute to Wikimedia” and finally to “I can explain/promote Wikimedia to others.”

Who is it for?

[edit]

These videos are intended for external audiences who are not familiar with the Wikimedia knowledge ecosystem.

What are the videos?

[edit]
borderless
borderless

For the first 10 videos, we started with a beginner mindset (“If everything is new, what do you need to know?”) and focused on covering high-level common questions in short one-minute explainer videos. The first ten explainers answer the following questions:

  1. How does Wikipedia work?
  2. Does the content on Wikipedia reflect the world’s diversity?
  3. Can you trust what’s on Wikipedia?
  4. What makes a Wikipedia article unique?
  5. Why do you see fundraising messages on Wikipedia?
  6. What does the Wikimedia Foundation do?
  7. What is the Wikimedia free knowledge movement?
  8. What free knowledge projects does the Wikimedia Foundation support?
  9. How can you join the Wikimedia free knowledge movement?
  10. How is misinformation addressed on Wikipedia?

For fiscal year 23/24 we created three additional videos. They are explainers for the following questions:

  1. How does Wikipedia protect readers’ privacy?
  2. Who is in charge of content on Wikipedia?
  3. What makes Wikipedia different from social media platforms?


How have the videos been used so far?

[edit]

By the Wikimedia Foundation

[edit]

The Communications Department has used these videos in a variety of external-facing campaigns to date, including: Open the Knowledge: Stories, Journalism Awards, Knowledge is Human, and Wikipedia Needs More Women. They have also been used across social media, PR, and the Foundation website. Other teams at the Foundation have also found different opportunities to use these as part of their messaging.

By Wikimedia communities

[edit]

Wikimedians have already found ways to incorporate these videos into their own work. Some examples are:

We hope that Wikimedia communities find these videos useful as a means of reaching external audiences in more localized settings (instructions for adding localized subtitles live on Commons). If you have used these videos in your own work, please let us know with a comment on the talk page.

How have external audiences responded to the videos?

[edit]

Through various campaigns and a few localized surveys, we’ve found that external audiences are incredibly responsive to these videos. Surveys have been conducted in the US and Nigeria with amazing results.

Across both markets, a few videos were independently surveyed, including a question about Net Promoter Score (NPS). A standard NPS question asks: “How LIKELY is it that you would RECOMMEND Wikipedia to a friend or colleague, after having watched the video.” It measures the likely level of advocacy among readers, reflecting the strength of the overall user experience and reputation of the brand.

In the US, we saw NPS scores for Wikipedia increase dramatically after watching each of the following 4 videos, indicating an increase in affinity or loyalty to the project:

  1. How does Wikipedia work? +22 percentage points (NPS)
  2. Does the content on Wikipedia reflect the world’s diversity? +16 percentage points (NPS)
  3. Why do you see fundraising messages on Wikipedia? +38 percentage points (NPS)
  4. What does the Wikimedia Foundation do? +35 percentage points (NPS)

In Nigeria, we also saw great NPS for the 2 surveyed videos:

  1. How does Wikipedia work? +24 percentage points (NPS)
  2. Does the content on Wikipedia reflect the world’s diversity? +21 percentage points (NPS)

Where are the videos?

[edit]

The videos are being uploaded to Commons and YouTube as they are published. They are also embedded in selected Foundation campaigns, blogs, and news releases. Additionally, they are being promoted through social media posts and YouTube ads. The videos are available in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic.

On Commons, you can find the videos organized by language.

Community input

[edit]

Our focus right now is on producing these explainers to support the Communications department Annual Plan. Even though community usage is not our main focus, we welcome people to reuse and share the videos in contexts where this would be helpful. As always, translations of the video subtitles are welcome.

What's next?

[edit]

As of now, 13 videos have been created. We are in the process of determining next steps for any new videos in the coming fiscal year.

Retrieved from "https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation/Communications/A_Wiki_Minute&oldid=27138868"