Talk:Social media/Archive 1

Archive from Talk:Social media/Article of the week

List

Thanks for the notifications. The growing list might make nice material for a blog post at diff at some point. 24.151.56.107 16:36, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

No longer being updated?

It looks like this page is no longer being updated, even though the listings are continuing, e.g. https://www.facebook.com/33138223345/posts/10159056234328346. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:09, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Juan Sebastían Elcano

Hello! Next week will be the 500th Anniversary of the first circumnaviation, led by en:Juan Sebastián Elcano. The article is fairly complete, and it would be a good idea to share it this Friday, as there will be quite a good amount of references in press. Thanks! Theklan (talk) 17:31, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Theklan! Thank you for this suggestion. It is very interesting and timely. Unfortunately, we missed the original timing proposed as I was out of the office. But, we shared about this on Wikipedia's social media channels today focusing on the 500th anniversary of the first circumnavigation this month. We appreciate your help and ideas! LPasqual (WMF) (talk) 20:29, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Archive from Talk:Social media/Best practices page

Link https://www.facebook.com/wikipedia/posts/10153651103873346 is unavailable. --Kaganer (talk) 00:10, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Re employee personal accounts and politics

(Pinging @AJohnson (WMF): because her job title looks like it's most relevant to this, and the person who originally wrote the relevant policy no longer works for the WMF. If this area is actually someone else's responsibility, could you please inform me of who it is, or who I should ask to find out? Thanks.)

The page says, regarding WMF employees' personal social media accounts, that "Many arguments about politics and other divisive topics are flaring up on social media lately. If you post political opinions on social media, never mention the Foundation or Wikimedia projects." Is this rule in effect? I know of at least one very prominent WMF employee who regularly both posts particularly divisive political posts and posts about the WMF very frequently, from their personal Twitter account. Would it be appropriate to mention this to the employee(s) in question, or someone specific at the WMF? Or am I misunderstanding the policy, or is it no longer in effect, or something? --Yair rand (talk) 06:50, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Archive from Talk:Social media/Friendly space policy page

Unblock

I was blocked from wikipedia page on facebook for no good reason, i comment a lot actually on its posts because i like it, please unblock me, user name: George Adel Georgeadelmoureed (talk) 09:33, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Archive from Social media Talk page

Diaspora

Is there a reason why the WMF does not post to Diaspora? – Thx!--Aschmidt (talk) 20:34, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I can speak for the MediaWiki handler: we don't do it because we have enough trying to maintain identi.ca, Twitter, Facebook and Google+. If you (or someone you know) want to help spreading MediaWiki news to Diaspora, let's talk. Just make your request at the mw:Social media discussion page. See this post and the responses in that thread for a similar request related to app.net.--Qgil (talk) 18:17, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Duplication

Why was this page recently made a duplicate of Microblogging handles? There's no reason to have two lists for the same things, it's very confusing. --Nemo 13:20, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

No opposition in months, hence I've split the listing out and included the lists here. --Nemo 08:33, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Should we just remove the list from this page and keep the Microblogging Handles and Facebook pages as the master lists? I see your logic in asking the question and think it would be less confusing without the duplication. Matthew (WMF) (talk) 23:21, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

IEG

Fellows used to blog on the WMF blog; individual engagement grantee blog on their own and not even on Planet Wikimedia.[1] [2] [3] Should those be included somewhere? --Nemo 08:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Proposed chapters

Can we add proposed chapters and chapters in discussion, specifically Wikimedia Botswana, to the list? PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:56, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

reports

Hmmm... this is duplicated a little bit over on the Reports page. Maybe we should consolidate. Seems like this is better kept-up-to-date? (maybe?) -- phoebe | talk 19:38, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Delivery Status Notification

After I tried to email the specified address:

We're writing to let you know that the group you tried to contact (socialmedia) may not exist, or you may not have permission to post messages to the group. A few more details on why you weren't able to post:

• You might have spelled or formatted the group name incorrectly.
• The owner of the group may have removed this group.
• You may need to join the group before receiving permission to post.
• This group may not be open to posting.

If you have questions related to this or any other Google Group, visit the Help Center at http://support.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/bin/topic.py?topic=25838.

Thanks,

wikimedia.org admins

--Nemo 12:41, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, we're looking into it. The address was receiving emails from outside the group fine as late as a month ago. Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 16:33, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 01:50, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

kk:

kk.wiki has a nasty sitenotice with facebook and twitter logos linking to some community page. I'm not sure where to maintain a list of such ads. --Nemo 10:04, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Have you left a local note there asking for them to remove it?  — billinghurst sDrewth 10:30, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

kk:Қатысушы_талқылауы:Arystanbek#Usage_of_logos. Would you check if it's fixed? --M/ (talk) 11:12, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for contacting them. They removed the logos but there's still a link in sitenotice. I don't have the energies to figure out guidelines for such usage of sitenotice (and sidebar or equally visible things), I'm not sure what's acceptable and what's not. But I think the social media handles lists would use some note on which ones are heavily advertised from Wikimedia projects. --Nemo 16:48, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

In the meanwhile I've been adding notes to Microblogging handles and Facebook pages when I find an account advertised from sitenotice or sidebar. Krenair now made a list which should help increase coverage. It doesn't include links embedded in sidebar/sitenotice via templates. --Nemo 13:37, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

wikitech:Incident response#Communicating with the public

Is this up to date? --Nemo 21:52, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

It is now :) Thank you for the note. Let me know if you find other outdated information! Guillaume (WMF) (talk) 17:28, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Great, thanks. --Nemo 13:18, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Facebook group

It is inappropriate to suggest that conversations on a Wikimedia Foundation official activity be conducted on a Facebook group, especially a closed one. What happens there? What could be moved in an open source medium? Nemo 06:52, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Maybe, but it is certainly not inappropriate to use the platform itself that is the subject of the conversation (when possible). This is the equivalent of "Eating your own dog food. Using Facebook to discuss how to best use facebook (and to 'practice' posts to see if they display correctly, have the right tone etc) is definitely a good idea. Wittylama (talk) 13:42, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Now that it's suspended, please consider deleting or merging the group to reduce confusion. Nemo 21:12, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: It is true that the Foundation staff are not actively promoting and supporting it, however it appears that people are still actively using the group. Is there a reason to hinder their efforts by deleting the group? Have you discussed your concerns with the active community members of the group? What other Facebook group is it causing confusion with and should be considered for merger with? --Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 23:26, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Copyright policy

One of the most interesting, or at least, specifically different policies that I learned about recently (at WMCon) was how WMF social media only uses PD, CCO and self-made multimedia in its social-media posts. This is due to the copyright policy of facebook having an assignment clause hidden in there. I think that's a very bold stand, and one in the great tradition of Wikimedians taking copyright policies to the n'th degree :-) But, I'd like if it could be fleshed out somewhere, with specific reference to the FB ToS, so it can be easily referred to at any later date rather than having to explain the position. Wittylama (talk) 13:42, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

When I had questions about this, I was asked to read this page once: Legal/CC-BY-SA on Facebook --アンタナナ 13:59, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Twitter geography

https://mo z.com/followerwonk/analyze/wikipedia and https://mo z.com/followerwonk/analyze/wikimedia suggests that the main Twitter accounts managed by WMF have a bias towards following accounts in USA and posting during USA daytime, while most of the Wikimedia audience is probably closer to the Wikimedia wikis traffic, whose slowest point is around 0-6 UTC. Nemo 19:03, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Archiver note: Apparently mo z.com was added to the SBL. I've removed the link brackets and added spaces so that I can archive this. RAdimer-WMF (talk) 16:36, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Handles

Hi,

Nice page. I was curious, is there an overview of all handles in the Wikimedia universe? This page seems to focus in that respect a bit on the WMF-owned handles (probably unintentionally). I know this one exists:Microblogging_handles but maybe there's even more for other types of media. Would be good to at least explicitely link, but maybe even incorporate? Effeietsanders (talk) 15:43, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

YouTube accounts

Why does the foundation have two YouTube accounts (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK_cUZLMpibyRiIdp0uF-lQ which is verified and has few subscribers and https://www.youtube.com/user/WikimediaFoundation which is not verified but has many subscribers)?

Two? WMF has dozens accounts on YouTube. :) --Nemo 17:52, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi Daylen, I'm told that they're split because they're intended for different audiences—one is for live meetings and the like, and the other is for work produced by the Communications team. Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 17:20, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Medium account

The Wikipedia Medium account (https://medium.com/@Wikipedia) has been inactive since October 2016. Is the Foundation no longer using the platform? If not, why? Daylen (talk) 05:51, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Account verification

Hi,

we need account verification (blue tick) for Urdu wikipedia twitter account like English and Arabic — Bukhari (Talk!) 21:33, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Hacking

"Prone to hacking", oh really? Maybe it's time to start using terminology consistent with what Wikimedia is about. Nemo 19:16, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Content rate and sources

I noticed from some basic stats on @Wikimedia and @Wikipedia that at the beginning of 2020 there was an increase in activity of the @Wikimedia handle, while the @Wikipedia handle has fluctuated wildly in the last 6 months or so (due to personnel changes, I suppose). It's good to use @Wikimedia more, because we need to talk about free knowledge (including free software), topics which the WMF has neglected for so long and which can be best illustrated by talking about all our free knowledge projects rather than just Wikipedia.

However, I wonder if the people running the account are having troubles finding suitable content for it: I notice it's currently acting as a sort of "press clippings" service, redistributing articles from newspapers and blogs around the world. This may be a good idea, in that WMF folks are probably monitoring those press clippings anyway and it doesn't cost much effort to share their best findings on social media. I just want to remind that we have an excellent aggregator of news at https://en.planet.wikimedia.org/ . It has about 2 posts per day in the last couple weeks, while the @Wikimedia account is making about 1.5 original tweets per day on average in the last couple months, of which about one third link WMF's own social media, so you only need one URL per day to share to keep the current rate. If content is not enough, I suggest to check planets in other languages too.

List of the domains most commonly shared by @Wikimedia: medium.com (40), twitter.com (29), wikimediafoundation.org (9), w.wiki (7), en.wikipedia.org (6), wired.com (6), haaretz.com (3), zoom.us (3), forbes.com (3), link.medium.com (3), salvemosinternet.mx (3), web.aflia.net (3), weforum.org (2), indiatimes.com (2), meta.wikimedia.org (2), hopin.to (2), slate.com (2), docs.google.com (2), bit.ly (2), hypebeast.com (2), fastcompany.com (2), whoseknowledge.org (2), behance.net (2), ow.ly (2), popsci.com (2), si.edu (2), outreachy.org (2), commons.wikimedia.org (2), telegraphindia.com (1), techblog.wikimedia.org (1), euronews.com (1), thelily.com (1), protocol.com (1), thestandard.com.hk (1), hkartistswomen.com (1), humanmedia.org (1), thedp.com (1), Bit.Ly (1), indianexpress.com (1), hindustantimes.com (1).

About half of those medium.com URLs are WMF's own [4] (I think the WMF is running about a dozen blog domains nowadays...), while the rest are random people's blogs (sometimes WMF employees). Nemo 08:57, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Aurie Twitter Contact

Hi guys, is Aurie still in charge of the Twitter Account?! Her Twitter Accounts posted on her WMF Userpage does not exist and I do not get any answer on an inquiry. Do we have any policy on what is posted to Twitter!? I was pretty surprised to see WP:2021 Myanmar Protests in the official Twitter Feed yesterday while it is heavily discussed at WP:ITN and semi-protected for Vandalism. --CommanderWaterford (talk) 08:42, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Re: Twitter engagement questions

In response to this message on Wikimedia-l regarding engagement rates on Twitter, I would like to share some of the following resources that the Foundation uses to benchmark the metrics of the @Wikipedia account compared to industry standards. There are several resources available, and each varies slightly in its recommendations.

Rival IQ is a social media marketing analytics company that has developed social media industry benchmark reports for several years. According to its 2022 report, the median Twitter engagement rate for brands across all industries is 0.037%; for nonprofits specifically, it is 0.054%. According to Statista, which specializes in market and consumer data, the average engagement rate on Twitter across industries was 0.04%. According to Adobe, "most would consider 0.5% to be a good engagement rate for Twitter, with anything above 1% great." Wikipedia Twitter's engagement rate, according to the dashboard we access when logged-in to the account, over the last 28 day period is 2.7% (see here for a screengrab of these analytics). In March, April, May, and June, it was 2.1%, 2.4%, 2.6%, and 2.2%, respectively. Given the data I shared above, we consider this performance to be above industry standards.

I hope that these are helpful resources as you continue management of the @euwikipedia account. Please note that Twitter defines "engagement rate" as the number of engagements (clicks, retweets, replies, follows, and likes) divided by the total number of impressions (number of times users saw the tweet on Twitter). It is difficult to draw direct comparisons between the @euwikipedia and @wikipedia accounts due to the difference in follower size and our more global focus, as well as the objectives we are prioritizing to support the movement but also build resonance among groups who can help us to push forward our knowledge equity goals. At the same time, a straight comparison—with the understanding that I cannot see the analytics for the @euwikipedia account—reveals more retweets, likes and comments on the Wikipedia account. I'd like to better understand however if we are defining engagement differently. Also, an overall higher engagement rate from Twitter's analytics could be a result of the low base effect (comparing two accounts of different sizes).  

Again, I hope all of this is helpful, and I am happy to continue the conversation here when I am back online on 25 July. Thanks! LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 17:46, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks again for the answer. The problem I see with engagement here is that you are using two different measures at the same time for comparison. Rival IQ defines engagement as interactions per follower, and Twitter defines it as interactions per impressions. So we would need to analyze the engagement per followers (630.000) and not by impressions, that I'm sure are way less. Could we know the number of interactions per month so we can calculate the engagement using the Rival IQ standard? Theklan (talk) 18:17, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

For the calculation using @euwikipedia we had in the 17 days gone in July 1,007 interactions for 89 tweets and 7,600 followers. Is to say, 0,149% of engagement following RivalIQ calculation. Is three times the industry standard for non profit, a good ratio (but July has been a bad month, because of holidays) Theklan (talk) 19:28, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I think we can get into a long back and forth on what engagement tools are most telling and accurate and what they say about the respective accounts. Ultimately, though, I'd like to go back to the spirit of your initial inquiry, which was about "centering free knowledge" and our common goal of showcasing the movement in the best way possible. On the Wikipedia account, we aim to do that by highlighting the breadth of the movement's work, values, and identity on a global scale to keep and attract new supporters. We welcome ideas for content from you and other community members so we can do better and strengthen our global focus. Striking the right balance between being inclusive, relevant, and values-aligned is what we strive for, though it's not always easy. Our strategy recognizes that there are people who are not yet part of our movement that must be if we are to achieve our knowledge equity goals. That means that a tweet about American actress Betty White may get more engagement than one about Burundian runner Francine Niyonsaba. And that is okay—because we prioritize inclusion and still send a strong message about the diversity of our content and our movement, so that we can attract new interest, particularly among those who are not yet well represented in our projects. LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 18:09, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks again for the answer. We share the same goal, but the way to achieve it seems different. I understand by your answer that you have understood that you are measuring engagement wrongly. A good way to improve it is to have more impressions. We don't know the exact details of the Twitter algorithm, but it seems clear that tweeting more gives more impressions and more engagement. Engagement also rises the number of impressions of the next tweet. We don't know the exact formula, but the ingredients are those. We can work on getting more engagement, but if we obscure the numbers once we know that you are using impressions instead of followers abd selling it as a success, then we can't do anything to improve the numbers. And, trust me, those numbers have a huge space for improvement.

Can we have the number of impressions for the tweets in the last 28 days, so we can all know where we are? Thanks. Theklan (talk) 20:01, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

The engagement ratio for the Catalan Wikipedia (@Viquipèdia) account, the 4th biggest worldwide which is managed by two community volunteers, with 7-10 tweets a day of 23 weekly content topics:

• Last 28 days, end June until now: (1900 clicks to articles + 2300 RT + 4500 likes + 129 replies + 841 cited tweets) / (244 tweets · 40710 followers) = 0.973
• 28 days of February 2022: (1900 clicks + 1800 RT + 5400 likes + 111 replies + 703 cited tweets) / (258 tweets · 40482 followers) = 0.949

At the cost of zero €. More than 65% of tweed bios are women. Weekly DMs and mentorship of new editors that we derive to the Village Pumps with first editing steps. Far from the widely blamable US-bias, we programme 30% Catalan-culture focus instead (not only Barcelona or Catalonia: all territories) by tweeting in all different, academically official accents of the language. Tweets on articles to improve, featured articles, and also articles to be translated. The profile has been featured several times in the press as one of the most fresh, active and interesting Twitter accounts of our linguistical domain. We have lots of data to report and inner style/discourse protocols. One year ago, the WMF Comms office disregarded our request for some institutional help to get the account verified with a 2-month delay and 1-line email reply. Xavier Dengra (MESSAGES) 07:52, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I think you're right—we have a different view on the way to achieve our goal. That's why sharing the numbers won't help. As I tried to illustrate with the examples I provided in my last response, we aim to draw in specific audiences, even if that process is methodical and gradual. In that vein, these are the numbers we are most focused on and believe to also be accurate for our needs. As I said previously, we'll be discussing our refreshed digital strategy more in detail with ComCom in the coming months. That will allow us to explore our focus more deeply with a larger group of movement representatives. Based on the tone and circular nature of this thread, I think it would be best to leave things at a respectful agreement to continue to pursue what is best for these different and unique audiences and goals. LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 20:43, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Sorry Lauren, but this is not fair. I made a question, you answered with some numbers (because they seemed inportant to you), I showed you that you were using two different measures for the same thing (wrongly) and then it seems that numbers and measurements are no longer important.

If something is important for the credibility of Wikimedia is that we check facts and numbers, and we have [citation needed] templates whenever the data is doubtful. I would like to know how many interactions WE had in the last month, because measuring and sources are relevant. Thanks. Theklan (talk) 21:31, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm a bit worried about the lack of answer here, especially since we are talking about a communications department. Nevertheless, I have downloaded the engagements for July, as we are entering August. We had a total of 4573 engagements for 141 tweets. This makes 0.425 engagement, is to say, half of the engagement presented by @Xavier Dengra, but 7.87 times higher than the industry standard you proposed as a benchmark. Can we have the numbers for @ wikipedia, please? Theklan (talk) 08:55, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

We are monitoring this page for new questions and comments with which we can engage constructively and offer new support and information. Regarding your request, we have already established and discussed that there are key differences in our social media strategies and goals, that we seem to use different metrics to measure engagement, and that we will be sharing our refreshed strategy in the coming months with ComCom. Please see my earlier comments for reference: Mainly, "Based on the tone and circular nature of this thread, I think it would be best to leave things at a respectful agreement to continue to pursue what is best for these different and unique audiences and goals." LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 21:02, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Archiving a topic that hasn't been answered seems weird to me. I'm still waiting for the metrics. Theklan (talk) 22:42, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Mastodon Social Account?

Mastodon is a free software micro blogging implementation. I think it would be awesome if Wikimedia mirrored their tweets to Mastodon in support of the free software aspect. https://joinmastodon.org/ 18:45, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but how? If you're interested, please fix [5] and I'll start updating [6]. --Nemo 14:25, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Update: it's very easy now with https://moa.party/ and similar. Initiatives on our topics, like those by FSFE, tend to reach wider audiences and have more engagement on the fediverse than on the mainstream social media, see for instance the statistics on #iloveFS where it's basically a tie: https://mastodon.social/@JayVii_de/103675049401883155

We've been running https://framapiaf.org/@wikimediaitalia for a while and it regularly happens that some toot produces more engagement than the corresponding tweet. Nemo 11:10, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

@Nemo bis would you be able to help document and track this in Wikidata or in some other way? I am really interested in following networks and spectrum of different use cases. Please check the request I just made https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Request_a_query#WMF_and_Wikimedia_Affiliates_activity_and_reach_of_on_Social_and_Web_media_services? --Zblace (talk) 06:22, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello, any plans of Communication Team using Mastodon in future? Thanks. --SCP-2000 15:59, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi @SCP-2000. Thank you for asking. The Digital Communications team has been researching Mastodon and considering our potential involvement with the platform in the future. At this time, we have no plans to create an account for the Foundation or Wikipedia. This is mainly because our observations show us that Mastodon is not yet reaching a large audience, which is one of the key objectives of our communications activity on social media. We will continue to monitor the situation and adjust our recommendations and practices to keep within our objectives. Thank you! LPasqual (WMF) (talk) 22:29, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Dear Lucas, this is a disappointing response considering all that has happened so far. I have responded over on the wikimedia-l list in some more detail, and hope Wikimedia Foundation will reconsider its stance on the matter soon.--Eloquence (talk) 22:35, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Organic social media strategy update

We wanted to provide an update here that in February and March, members of the Communications Department met with ComCom to discuss social media strategy and got some great insights.

We talked about the ways in which the Foundation and Wikipedia accounts’ strategy is rooted in the movement’s strategic direction and goals to promote knowledge equity and knowledge as a service. The content we share aims to raise understanding of Wikipedia and Wikimedia and build trust with people who may not be part of our movement globally. It’s also intended to be a reflection of our values as a movement and the diversity of content created by volunteers around the world. A lack of understanding limits progress, as can be seen from data we’ve collected. In some cases, that may mean elevating a post that may not get a lot of engagement now, but will result in more gradual trust-building and increased understanding with audiences we are trying to attract.

Our guiding Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are centered on increased awareness, understanding, and trust in Wikipedia, Wikimedia, and the Wikimedia Foundation over time with our audiences. We know that some content gets more likes and retweets than others, but we consider what we post in the context of these goals. Further, we find that the most meaningful way to measure our impact toward these goals is through metrics that are evaluated through the Communications Department’s Brand Health Tracker. Through this report, which is updated every six months, we are able to track KPIs that directly relate to our audiences’ perceptions of brand awareness, trust, and understanding of Wikimedia and our projects.

In addition to tracking KPIs from the Brand Health Tracker, our team regularly monitors metrics from within the platforms to inform strategy shifts, which were also shared with ComCom. For example, in a review of Wikipedia Twitter’s performance in March 2023, the engagement rate by followers was 2.08%* ; the engagement rate by impressions was 1.96%**; the engagement rate according to Twitter’s methodology was 1.9%. These metrics are helpful, but again, not our north star. Especially in a time when Twitter’s algorithm is changing often, it is a more impactful and meaningful approach to align social strategy with movement strategy, and measure accordingly. We also track data around the impact of our campaigns. For example, the Open the Knowledge: Stories campaign just ended today, Friday 31 March, and we will be able to share those results in the coming weeks.

We truly appreciate the questions and feedback we received from members of ComCom and others — including how we can further share our movement values across social channels, apply learnings from past content and campaign performance, and more. We will continue to share regular updates with ComCom regarding social media strategy and continue discussions together. We’re incorporating feedback as we hear more. As always, you can continue to submit ideas and questions on this talk page.

*13,413 total engagements divided by 643,530 followers, times 100 = 2.08%

**13,413 total engagements divided by 685,967 impressions, times 100 = 1.96%

Source: Twitter Media Studio; data compiled on 31 March 2023.

LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 14:47, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Dear Lauren. I'm not going to repeat every argument made before, but this message is truly disencouraging. I have read lots of messages about our social media strategy, but this one made me sad. We can't do it better if we don't aknowledge that the current situation is a disaster and we still push some numbers as proof of our brand health. 13,413 engagements in a month is a total deception. 685,967 impressions in a month should sound as an alarm. Any tweet by YouTube has more than that, and they tweet daily. Basque Wikipedia Twitter, without "verified" badge and only 8,100 followers made 101,000 impressions in March. We got 1,326 engagements. That's an engagement per follower of 16.37% (compared to 2.08%) and 12.46 impressions per follower (compared to 1.07). Wikipedia's global handle engagement is permoring bad.

You claim: These metrics are helpful, but again, not our north star.. Which is our north star then? Is there even any guiding idea on how to to become the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet. Some volunteers are ready to work on making it happen, but, again, we find a wall in front of us. Today is late. Next month will be later. We are here to help.

Sincerely. Theklan (talk) 07:47, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Brand exposure sources

LDickinson (WMF), can you clarify how the Brand Health Tracker helps assess individual communication efforts and venues? You mention the @wikipedia Twitter account, but I can't find any way to trace any of the tracker's metrics back to it. If you mean the "brand exposure" value for "social media", can you clarify how that's relevant, whether the WMF is trying to increase that number and if so why and how that furthers the WMF's strategic goals? Thanks, Nemo 06:27, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Nemo bis, Thanks for this question and for your patience on my reply! I seemed to have missed this somehow. To clarify, the Brand Health Tracker (BHT) does not measure the direct impact of each social media channel. Rather, it measures the extent of exposure of the brand via social media channels versus other channels generally. Our goal is to diversify the channels that expose key audiences to our brands, rather than only relying on search engines (which is our primary source of first contact currently). We want to promote other channels, including social media, as a means to increase awareness, understanding, and affinity for our brands over time. We know based on the latest edition of the BHT that 22.2% of people are first introduced to Wikipedia from social media. Our goal is to increase the percentage over time. Please let us know if you have further questions. LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 15:06, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello Laura (glad to meet you in person!). I'm really perplexed to read this: "22.2% of people are first introduced to Wikipedia from social media.". If this data is true, the current strategy of not tweeting/tooting content is even more strange, as we are losing opportunities to be first introduced in those social media channels. Sincerely, Theklan (talk) 14:59, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Twitter verification checkmarks

On 20 April, Twitter removed the blue checkmark for accounts that did not pay or subscribe to Twitter Blue – which they are calling “legacy verified checkmarks”.

This action included the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia accounts.

At this moment, we do not intend to pay for the checkmarks.

Please know we are closely monitoring this situation. We are also in contact with other nonprofit organizations to evaluate next steps. We will share updates here.

LPasqual (WMF) (talk) 19:32, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

After this move, is more important than ever to grow an audience and have interactions with them. The algorithm used to push higher the blue checkmarked accounts, but now the only way to trick the algorithm is the number of interactions. There are some proposals for achieving this, I hope the team in the WMF takes them in consideration. Theklan (talk) 07:27, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

IMO, the WMF should consider leaving Twitter entirely. It is no longer a safe space for our community to interact on. Nosferattus (talk) 18:31, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Definitely. Facebook and Instagram are even worse, as we know at least since Cambridge Analytica, so these would also be excellent candidates for a first place to leave. Nemo 06:52, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Usage of proprietary services

I notice that recent announcements claim «We also know there are other social media options launching or that have launched (e.g. Threads, Bluesky). We are also looking into experimenting with these». Can WMF explain what it has learnt from its past usage of proprietary software social media services, and how it plans to use that knowledge? Nemo 06:51, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi, @Nemo bis. Thank you for getting in touch! Wikimedia Foundation, affiliates, and user groups across the movement have used social media as a way to gain attention for movement work, invite them to join as contributors, and help them to understand how our projects work. They are an important pathway for meeting audiences where they are. E.G., in a global survey asking people how they were exposed to Wikipedia, nearly 25% said it was through social media. We have seen them help to create strong pathways into our projects, and we continue to learn. LPasqual (WMF) (talk) 18:36, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

wikimedia.social comments

Hi, very excited to see this move forward! It would be great to have a wiki page for wikimedia.social, in the same style of Wikis World and wiki.style.

It's been pointed out that the @wikimediafoundation account isn't verified yet, probably the easiest way to do so would be to use the RealMe extension on the home page of foundation.wikimedia.org (happy to help with this). At the very least it would be good to turn the current "domain" profile field into a clickable link.

The privacy policy appears to be using the default Mastodon one and should probably refer to the non-wiki privacy policy instead?

Finally, could we get some details on what the current moderation situation is and what the rules are (the server rules are currently blank)? On Wikis World we already saw some harassment come in from the announcement of the WMF account, so it would help us if we knew what to expect out of this instance.

HTH, Legoktm (talk) 06:11, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi, @Legoktm. We appreciate you getting in touch and sharing the excitement on the new instance!

As we mentioned in our update on Wikimedia-l, staff from the Product & Technology department will maintain the instance. The team is already working on the points you mentioned and will update the instance soon. Thank you! LPasqual (WMF) (talk) 18:39, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Include Mastodon links on the page

It seems appropriate the links to the relevant Mastodon accounts are added alongside the other platforms already listed on the page. - OdinintheNorth (talk) 17:47, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you. cc @LPasqual (WMF): SCP-2000 07:39, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi @OdinintheNorth. Thank you for suggesting. We have updated the Meta page to include the official Mastodon instance, managed by the Wikimedia Foundation's Product and Technology department. @SCP-2000, thanks for the ping! LPasqual (WMF) (talk) 00:07, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Discontinue use of Twitter

I was pointed here as the place to give feedback about how the Wikimedia Foundation uses social media. If there is a better place to submit this feedback please let me know. I believe the organization should no longer actively post or monitor Twitter as the site has lost significant value in the last year or so and what it represents as a social network has significantly changed for the worse. - OdinintheNorth (talk) 04:38, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree that Twitter has lost significant value in the last year, but there are a large number of users who still use Twitter. Since social media is used to share and promote the Wikimedia project to more people, it may not be a good option to stop using Twitter. And Wikimedia Foundation may try to explore another alternatives, such as Threads, Bluesky etc. Thanks. SCP-2000 07:32, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi @OdinintheNorth. Thank you for your message.

Building on what @SCP-2000 wrote: We are aware that the changes to X/Twitter following Elon Musk’s acquisition have caused many users to leave the platform entirely. However, there is a critical mass that still have a presence and engage in conversations there, including many Wikimedia volunteers – such as individuals, user groups, and affiliates. The Wikimedia Foundation is active on the platform to: a) respond to their needs and amplify movement messages to external audiences, as well as b) help our goal of creating awareness of the free knowledge movement. Our team is closely and continuously monitoring the situation to evaluate our presence on X/Twitter. And we are always exploring alternatives and other social media channels. Thank you! LPasqual (WMF) (talk) 00:08, 17 February 2024 (UTC)