Social media/Strategy for the Wikimedia Foundation

The big idea

The big idea is connected to our goals, but it is not the same thing. It shapes our content and choices. It defines the type of content our followers should expect from us when they follow us on social media. And it is our overarching concept that is reflected in every piece of content we publish.

The big idea for the Wikimedia Foundation

We tell the human stories of how the Wikimedia Foundation is advancing free knowledge in the world.

Let's break down the big idea and clarify each part of it:

human

Humans are at the center of everything related to the Wikimedia movement, including the Wikimedia Foundation.

Our projects are run by thousands of volunteers from all around the world.
We are a social movement.

We are special and unique as an organization in the technological landscape because of the work humans do to ensure free and neutral information is accessible to everyone.

People want to see themselves reflected in our content.

stories

Creating narratives around our social media channels provides an easier path for our audiences to receive, digest, and understand what we do.

Stories are accessible, relatable, empathetic, inspiring, interesting, powerful, engaging.

People exist within stories. They are how we connect.
Stories are how people can see themselves as part of the free knowledge movement.

the Wikimedia Foundation

Our organization needs to be able to stand on its own. We aspire to establish the Wikimedia Foundation as a brand that:

powers the product and technology work that makes Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects possible,
is the leader in the tech for good landscape, and
promotes free knowledge and ensures that humans remain central to compiling and curating it.

The Foundation coexists with other groups and affiliates within the movement. While we amplify other efforts, we need to better distinguish ourselves to increase understanding of the differences.

This is an opportunity to better explain the free knowledge ecosystem, what the Foundation does, and its role in this universe. There is a role to be played in enabling the Wikimedia movement to tell its own stories.

advancing free knowledge

The guiding principle for the Wikimedia Foundation, following everything the Foundations does and stands for.

Strategically, all content published on the Foundation's social media channels must always go back to the movement's vision of a world where everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

Social media is a tool that serves our larger goals as part of the free knowledge movement. Through our social media channels, we can exhibit what is being done by and within the Wikimedia Foundation to support the movement, noting that there is a fundamental human quality to what the Foundation is made of.

Free knowledge is what keeps us grounded to our goals.

Target audience

Who is our audience?

Tech Contributors & Collaborators: Those contributing to our free knowledge projects are an important audience to communicate to and collaborate with. As a technology organization, tech contributors have valuable insights to share. This group includes everyone that is a collaborator, even those unaware of the larger movement.
Advocates: Those actively following our mission, as well as those aware of and motivated about the free knowledge movement, but still evaluating how to get involved.
Social searchers: New audiences using social to search for cause-driven content that they can share or support.

How do we engage with them?

Tech Contributors & Collaborators
- We do want to be appreciative of their contributions and allow for their voices to be heard and great work to be seen.
- We do not want to put the Wikimedia Foundation above the contributors. The movement always comes first.
Advocates
- We do want to celebrate and inspire their passion and advocacy for our cause and direct their energy in helpful directions.
- We do not want to discourage or dampen their enthusiasm or passion.
Social searchers
- We do want to encourage further involvement with our mission and show them how to engage and learn further.
- We do not want to exclude them or discourage future involvement.

Who else do we want to reach?

Policy Makers: As a global brand, the Wikimedia Foundation is a leader in advocating for laws and policies that help knowledge on Wikimedia projects to be freely accessible for all. It is essential that policymakers worldwide familiarize themselves with the Wikimedia projects, Foundation, and movement, and our social channels can play a vital role.
Media & the Press: All content added to Wikipedia has to come from verifiable sources. Journalists are fundamental players in this equation, as their stories help create knowledge on Wikimedia projects. Social media is a way of keeping the media informed of how our model works and what the Wikimedia Foundation does.
Partners: From other nonprofits, to collaborators, to donors: we are in this mission together. We want to ensure we are reaching partners on our channels, including those that are not already following us, so that we can call on them to repost or share supportive content.

Tone of voice

Foundation's tone of voice

To pursue knowledge is to believe in the power to create almost anything.

For the past 20+ years, Wikipedia has striven to be a collaborative effort. This is an ambitious goal that is hard to put into practice. Yet, here we are.

Wikimedia projects stem away from the traditional ideas of what and who learning is for. As a tech leader, we pursue knowledge and advocate for its protection.

We follow the movement's leadership in seeing knowledge as more than just an idea, but as a life force that nurtures all.

What we stand for

To carry out our mission requires energy, patience, and belief.

Our audience is also action- and cause-driven. They want to see that energy to build connections.

This approach also helps create reasons to believe the free knowledge movement and what it stands for are worth contributing to.

Our tone

We are devoted to an important cause that often needs championing, but we cannot do it alone.

The people in our community and beyond are those we wish to inspire and the ones that inspire us.

We are:

Empathetic
Brave
Passionate
Reasoned

Our path to success


FROM	TO	BY
A “hero in the shadows”, nurturing and supporting the free knowledge movement.	A leader in technology for good that is recognized for championing the access and sharing of free knowledge as a bridge to culture and connection.	Communicating the need for and value of free knowledge on Wikimedia projects now and into the future, across channels, platforms, and languages.

Content pillars

Basic principles for the Foundation

Mission-driven: We are a technology organization that is also a nonprofit. We were born from the open movement and embrace transparency in all our work. In order to connect with our audience, we need to share the mission behind the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as the impact it will have now and in the future.
Holistic content: There are so many things happening inside the Wikimedia movement that are unseen to the wider world. We are focused on sharing what is happening across our free knowledge projects and showing their impacts in a clear way.
Global voices: As we are one made from many. It is important to elevate the creators from around the world both within the Wikimedia team and our amazing partners and contributors – in their own words.

About our content pillars

Our content pillars enable us to focus on areas of storytelling. While there is a baseline mix of content, they are meant to fluctuate each month.

By “turning the volume up and down”, based on the yearly calendar, communication priorities, and current events, there is a flexible structure to keep our audience engaged and grow new audiences organically.

Our insights tools will help determine the balance of content under each pillar. It will also help us ensure that we are applying a DEI lens to the balance of content, so that it is appealing to our global audiences.

Content pillars overview


Topical and timely learning			Novel and new learning		Why support
1. Our mission & work	2. Our projects & campaigns	3. Our advocacy & partners	4. Our team	5. Our community	6. Our impact
Share our movement and passion and why it matters on a global level. Educate and inspire with what drives us all forward. Reinforce an understanding of the Foundation as a Tech & Product-first organization, our nonprofit model, and why we fundraise.	Share with our audiences all of the projects that the Wikimedia Foundation is leading. Highlight them as important parts of the whole mission, but also as a jumping off point for thought leadership topics.	We need help achieving our goals, and there are several partners that can help us with that. We can showcase our advocacy, share why it is necessary, mention the partnerships that help us expand knowledge access, and inspire others to join us.	Share with our audiences the people working behind the scenes to make sure the Wikimedia Foundation is moving forward with our goals. Include specific teams and voices that are parts of the whole mission. Present the Foundation as a Tech & Product-first organization.	Highlight our contributors that fuel our platforms and elevate their passion, smarts, and dedication. Present the key community initiatives being developed as part of our overall goal towards knowledge equity, such as those that are tackling the knowledge gaps.	Tell the story of the scale and impact the Wikimedia movement and the Foundation have around the globe, both aspirationally and tactically with data. Explain what are the goals we are currently trying to achieve (e.g. work on closing the knowledge gaps on Wikipedia).
Baseline
20%	20%	20%	10%	20%	10%

This distribution breakdown allows for a combination of many factors, such as alignment to our brand values and content that can be easily prepared or anticipated. We will monitor this distribution regularly to achieve balance on a yearly-basis, while also having flexibility about making posts that serve our communications needs and are relevant to the current trends and events going on around the world.

Look & feel

The visual identities used on Wikimedia Foundation social media channels were reformulated in June 2024. Our objective is to achieve consistency and recognizability, so that content can be clearly understood by audiences as coming from our brand.

This re-imagined look & feel respects the social media strategy presented in this page. It is also translated into templates to be applied when producing both static and video content.

This section will be updated soon.