A wiki is a site which can be modified by its audience.

The usual format is an encyclopedia-style collection of articles, intended to be impartial and unbiased. The most widely known is Wikipedia, however there are hundreds of wikis on the internet serving more specific or niche interests such as wikitravel.org and thepetwiki.com.

The crucial difference between wikis and traditional web sites is the audience controls the content. This means (with a few exceptions) people write and edit the articles and moderate the content. Anyone reading an article who identifies an error or omission can modify the content and add corrections.

Active wikis have a community of regular contributors and moderators who vet changes and “roll back” to earlier versions of articles if they get vandalized. Additionally these contributors set guidelines to ensure consistency of tone, format, length and content; and flag those articles which don’t comply.

How can I use a wiki in my company?

A wiki doesn’t necessarily have to be open to the public. Many companies use them internally to store the knowledge and expertise of their employees in a central forum.

Wikis are great tools for storing historical and current project information, where the participants of the project may be dispersed across different locations and time zones.
The central collaboration aspect means different versions of documents are not emailed around to one another and a full history of changes and contributions from each participant can be tracked.

Additionally these wiki articles can form the basis of product documentation, provide knowledge to new staff members or other teams within a company.

Alternatively a wiki may be accessible but read-only to the general public, providing a forum for a company’s customers to access product information. The advantage here is the company’s staff have an easy-to-use method of publishing information to their customers directly without relying on an IT team to update a website.

Features

Most wikis share the same common set of features:

• User accounts system to track who is making changes and what they have written.
• Permission controls which prevent changes to certain articles, or exclude public access altogether.
• History to view changes to a document over time, indicating the changes made, when and by whom.
• Search to access information which would otherwise be locked away in a document or someone’s head.
• Automatic linking between articles for references and easier navigation.
• Easy formatting to make documents appear like professional web pages without requiring knowledge of web code.
• Uploading files, images and videos which can be embedded in articles.

What other benefits?

Search Engine Ranking

If your company provides a community-focused wiki for its customers you get a massive boost in search engine rankings.

Search engines prize frequent changing, up-to-date, relevant and in-depth content. If you have a site dedicated to documenting and discussing your products and their features and uses then the search engine ranking will be much higher.

Read more about search engine optimisation here.

Serving their customers

The world of Web 2.0 means customers are more demanding and more savvy. They expect a company to connect with them through whichever means they choose. And they want answers to their questions and reviews of your products.

If you do not provide such information then someone else will, and it may not be accurate.

So companies which provide a knowledge forum to their customers are perceived as more supportive and engaging.
Building a community around your products means your customers are more satisfied and more likely to buy from you again.

Knowledge sharing

Employees who collaborate over an easy-to-use forum will be better informed and more up-to-date on a project. If this information is in a domain where anyone can access it then the knowledge can spread company-wide.
And the wiki’s value increases the more people use it as the contributions become more frequent and the information more complete.

“Hit by a bus” syndrome

Every company has key employees who are crucial to a project or role. Most of their value comes from their experience, knowledge and ability.
They also represent a massive risk. If just one person in a company can perform a vital task then the entire organisation is depending on that one individual.

A wiki helps alleviate this risk by sharing and storing their knowledge and also empowering others with a better understanding of how their company functions.

Arctic Kiwi supply and host a range of wikis for their clients both internal and external. If you are interested in setting up a wiki or would like to know more, please contact us.