Grants:IEG/Build an effective method of publicity in PRChina/Final

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Welcome to this project's final report! This report shares the outcomes, impact and learnings from the Individual Engagement Grantee's 6-month project.

Part 1: The Project[edit]

Summary[edit]

In a few short sentences, give the main highlights of what happened with your project. Please include a few key findings or learnings from your project in bullet points, for readers who may not make it all the way through your report.

Methodology[edit]

Average change in pageviews for 17 zh.wikipedia.org articles linked to from weibo.com in 2013; Author: Jonathan Morgan

The major focus of this project is: how to attract people's attention to follow the account. The more followers the account has, means more impact the account can have and more traffic the account can bring. As the platform of outreaching programs of Chinese Wikipedia, it's very important to gather more attention and reach more different people.

  1. Post of article which relative with current affairs or breaking news. One example is about the one Chinese Soccer Club win the Asian Champions League, which is the first time for China in past 23 years. When I saw the news, I immediately posted the abstract of article of that club which got 24 repost. I posted another article about the Chinese club which won the Champions 23 years ago, which even got 47 repost and 24 thousand views. Normally, the post about "On this day" only get less than 5 repost.
    The strategy on that is, you really don't know when the breaking news will come, which have to highly related with Wikipedia articles. So for other days, we post somethings like "On this day", "Wikiquote" and "Feature Picture". These posts are relatively low effect but need more works. The reason these posts are still important is, these posts just like tea house, which can not help Wikipedia grow or maintain the community healthy in several days, but is a long-term plan and you only can detect it's effect and importance in very long time period. Maybe the breaking news post can help to reach a lot of people in one day, but breaking news won't happen everyday, and you still need to keep post to keep the followers you already got.
  2. Interesting articles are also the best for the post, because it's...interesting. People on social media prefer to share interesting things. Posts like en:Wiki Peak, en:Principality of Sealand and en:Emperor Norton are more popular than others. combination of articles also can make content interesting. Like"Turkish Rice does not come from Turkish, Shanghai fried noodles does not come from Shanghai, and Hainanese chicken rice does not come from Hainan."
  3. Our plan in midpoint to communicate other accounts who partially share the same idea or doing same work with us but have more influence than us works in this period. It's hard to build that kind of relationship at the beginning of the account. Although people like to corporate with others who share idea, but prefer to work with people in the same level. As the official partner of Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in China, guokr.com agreed to help to disseminate the WLM on weibo.com by "@"(mentione) our account. More than 200 new followers got from a single post!
    This kind of advantage only happened 2 or 3 times during the six-month period. But I believe that the corporation will become more often in future with the increase of the account. The strategy of the account on this side is, that the social media account will become a good platform to help other outreach of Wikipedia because it's big influence. And those activities will finally help the account just like what happened for Wiki Loves Monuments.
  4. Running Campaign for Wikimedia Souvenir is a new method in this period. For those people who strongly supporting us or are big fans of Wikipedia, and active editors on Wikipedia, we ran several campaigns to thanks them and encourage them to continuously contribute and support. But this cheap souvenir build a good identity for them to Wikipedia, and prefer to show off to their friends. Especially for those editors work on Wikipedia in many years, have chance to told their friends that is what they do.
    The differences between postcards and souvenir are:
    1. Postcards are much cheaper than souvenir
    2. The meaning of souvenir is it's official, but postcard can get the title as "authorized" or "granted"
    3. Shipment of postcards is cheapest in all over the world compare other method to ship the souvenir
    4. The shipping process of postcard make it more meaningful, especially sent from Wikimania, or from U.S.
  5. Offline Meetups are somethings we did a lot before the midpoint. One reason is all three of us are free during the summer holiday, but not when school started. Another reason is we realized the offline activities with "single session and general audience"(Asaf) does not work well. We had the same kind of feeling but don't know it's true. We give up our offline activities and looking for to design more effective and meaningful activities in the future.
    But one thing of the offline activities is, that we have long talks with many active users of Wikipedia, and collect their idea and opinions of how to run the social media. Which help us to figure out our own path for working on social media.
  6. And the most basic one is keeping post everyday. Social media is a long-term project which hard to realize the change and success in several months. There are around 1800 posts we posted in past six months, which means average 10 post per day. To cover different periods and groups of people, we mainly post at 7 A.M. when people are on the way to work, and at Noon, when people relax and having lunch, then from 5 P.M. to 12 A.M. The point we post every hour in these time because people at these periods are more active on social media.

Activities[edit]

Offline[edit]

  • Meetup in Shanghai (May 14): 5 people attended;
  • Meetup in Beijing (May 25): 3 ZHWP admin attended; development of social media, better way to outreach
  • Meetup in Songjiang, Shanghai (June 1): 8 people attended; In this biggest university town of Shanghai, some students shared their idea about possibility of school club and outreach in university based on Social Media.
  • Meetup in Minghang, Shanghai (June 1): 9 SJTU students attended including many active editors of Shanghai JiaoTong University; Eric Song shared his experience of designing new main page of Chinese Wikipedia, User:Flsxx told how he wrote a good articles, and we also discuss the knowledge database and Wikipedia.
    Shanghai Jiaotong university is the core of our university out reach plan because more than 5 active users of Chinese Wikipedia and one admin study there. As one of the best universities in China, we looking for to get chance to run an experimental education program and maybe more.
  • Meetup in Yinchuan (June 9): 6 people attended; discussed with a local students' charity organization about how to connect Wikipedia with students' charity and the project which organize Arabic major students to write their hometown in Arabic and translate feature content in Arabic Wikipedia to Chinese Wikipedia.
    Wstern China is the poorest region in this countries. Bad education quality makes children knowing nothing about the outisde world. Wikipdia is a prefect content provider for expanded reading. Spreading the idea of Wikipedia to children will not only good for their growth but also great fot keeping healthy of the community.
  • Wikimedia Tour in Dalian, China (July 6-7): 60 people attended. The first day is open for general audience. Anyone who have interest about Wikipedia or want to know something about Wikipedia is welcomed. And second is designed for people who want to or already contribute to Wikipedia. People were divided by small groups to discuss and each group had a experienced editor.; Detail and photos see HERE.

Online[edit]

  • A small scale experiment of "Prize for repost" in May. We asked our followers who can find less than six wikilinks between two certain articles. And the fastest three will win the souvenir of Wikipedia. The reason this experiment worked not very well and less than expectation is, that the activities is not based our post but someone's post who is one of the account followers. And the activities focus on using "direct message" rather than reposting. Although we had some good interactions with our followers but failed on reach more people. This kind of activity is one of our plans, and we gave it up because it works not that very well.
  • In July, we held the activity called “prize for Wikipedia Syndrome (Wikipedia Addiction)”. We made a long-weibo (a technique on weibo.com helps people post more than 140 characters by using the imagine) about what some of our followers describe their "symptom" of Wikipedia Syndrome, then called others to repost it and addd their own experience on "Wikipedia Syndrome". And we randomly selected 10 of them to get the souvenir of Wikipedia.
  • Then during the Wikimania 2013, we ran a campaign. For people who does not have chance to be there, who repost our post about Wikimania, will get the chance to win the postcard sent from Hong Kong. We received 239 entries totally and gain more than 300 new followers.
  • In September, we used the account to promote the Wiki Loves Monuments. For reaching more people to know this activities and gain more contributor of Wikimedia projects. Who repost our promotion of Wiki Loves Monuments have chance to get a postcard. And if who see this post and upload photo to attend the activities, they can post the link and mentioned our account to get the souvenir.

Please list all activities you’ve undertaken as part of your project, and provide a description for each activity.

Outcomes and impact[edit]

At 1:35 of Nov. 19 (UTC), the account has 9941 followers, already post 1877 microblogs.

The average view of single post is 5151(average of lastest ten posts).

Following data comes from weibo.com offical tool called Microdata(Wei Shu Ju)

Top three interest topic our followers: internet, star, journalists
Around 1/4 followers are female
Top three regions our followers come from: Guangdong(16.1%), Shanghai(10.9%), Beijing(10.9%)
Button three regions our followers come from: Qinghai (6), Tibet (8) , Ningxia (13)
20.8% followers have 100-199 followers, around 2% have over 2000 followers
Influence credit: 319, at the second degree (2/5)


Please discuss anything you have created or changed (organized, built, grown, etc) as a result of your project.

Progress towards stated goals and targets[edit]

Please use the provided table to:

  1. List each of your original goals/targets (measures of success) from your project plan.
  2. Next to each goal/target, list the actual outcome that was achieved.
  3. Explain how your outcome compares with the original goal. Did you reach your planned targets? Why or why not?
Planned measure of success
(include numeric target, if applicable)
Actual result Explanation
build an effective platform for outreach to let more Chinese people know and use Wikipedia and even contribute to Wikipedia effective platform was set successfully for social media, the hardest part is to get first 10 thousand followers. The growth after this will become easier.


Strategic impact[edit]

  • Attract general public's attention to show how can one person makes the world difference through Wikipedia
  • Encourage people to upload photos or do small edit to taste the contributing to Wikipedia
  • For readers, they have a easier place to report the problems of articles. We can help to fix it through these suggestion
  • interact with different social groups or geographic groups to extent the circle of impact of Wikipedia
    Western China, minority regions, female

Additional impact[edit]

Key Learnings[edit]

The best thing about trying something new is that you learn from it. We want to follow in your footsteps and learn along with you, and we want to know that you took enough risks in your project to have learned something really interesting! Think about what recommendations you have for others who may follow in your footsteps, and use the below sections to describe what worked and what didn’t.

What worked well[edit]

What was successful? What would you recommend doing again? Please list these as short bullet points.

  • Using Social media to promote Wikimedia movement. But simply posting articles won't help a lot to reach more people. Content related to current affairs, or is interesting will help the account generate the virus marketing effect.
  • Take the social media as a platform. Social media can do more rather than social media itself.
  • A tiny motivation can makes difference. Maybe just a piece of stick can encourage people take their first step.
  • Interaction on social media can let people feel close, and generate more favor to what we promote.
  • When using social media to promote other activities, remember other activities can also help the growth of social media.

What didn’t work[edit]

What would you not do again or recommend that others do differently in the future? Please list these as short bullet points.

  • Offline meetup without any design or goal
  • Simply "call for edtiting"
  • Activity without "spreading" on Social Media. The way your followers promoting your account and the content on weibo.com called repost, so that their followers can see and know the exist of the account. But in our first experimental activity, we use direct message won't help to spread our content and account, which won't increase our popularity.

Other recommendations[edit]

If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please list them here.

  • Although we failed to find a method to measure the traffic our account bring to Wikimedia projects, since weibo.com using short link makes the thought hard to come true, for other program, traffic tracking should be a good way to evaluate the outcome.

Next steps and opportunities[edit]

Are there opportunities for future growth of this project, or new areas you have uncovered in the course of this grant that could be fruitful for more exploration (either by yourself, or others)? What ideas or suggestions do you have for future projects based on the work you’ve completed? Please list these as short bullet points.

  • Set up a website, simply like a blog website, but with some interactions. Blogs will be designed to promote Wikipedia, by undrictly way, like Blind Advertising. Social media can help to spread the articles and become the platform on discussing it.
    "The main idea of learning English is the ability of reading. You will build your skill on vocabulary and gramma through reading. Wikipedia is one of the best website that I highly recommend, you can just read any articles you interest. For those articles you have problems to understand, you can also check Chinese Wikipedia to see the version in your mother language..........balabala"
  • Keep supporting upcoming events and activities like Wiki Loves Monuments.
  • Get more followers and reach more different social groups

Project resources[edit]

Please provide links to all public, online documents and other artifacts that you created during the course of this project. Examples include: meeting notes, participant lists, photos or graphics uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, template messages sent to participants, wiki pages, social media (Facebook groups, Twitter accounts), datasets, surveys, questionnaires, code repositories... If possible, include a brief summary with each link.

Part 2: The Grant[edit]

Finances[edit]

Actual spending[edit]

Please copy and paste the completed table from your project finances page. Check that you’ve detailed all approved and actual expenditures. If there are differences between the planned and actual use of funds, please use the column provided to explain them.

Souvenir[edit]

Date Purpose Sticker Button Lapel Pin Place
2013-04-14 Meetup 12 2 0 Shanghai
2013-05-25 Meetup 15 3 0 Beijing
2013-05-27 Meeting with partner 13 0 0 Beijing
2013-06-01 Meetup 16 3 0 Shanghai
2013-06-06 Meetup 24 4 0 Shanghai
2013-06-09 Meetup 4 1 0 Yinchuan
2013-05-24/25 Small Experiment of online activity 12 6 0 Online
2013-06-06/07 Wikimedia Tour in Dalian 31 17 0 Dalian
2013-07-23 1st "Prize for Repost" 20 10 0 Online
2013-11-16 WLM Promoting 660 220 0 Online
2013-11-16 WLM Promoting 0 0 10 Online
2013-11-19 WLM Promoting - Shipping Return -6 -2 0 Online

Expense[edit]

Date Time City Vendor Vendor ID Amount Currency Purchase Purpose of purchase Receipt status
2013-04-26 NA Online Chase NA 15 USD INCOMING DOMESTIC WIRE FEE Wire Transfer From WMF Receipt 01
2013-05-23 NA Shanghai YUNDA Ltd NA 6 RMB Shipment on "express mail" Small Experiment of online activity Receipt 02
2013-07-06/07 NA Dalian Tianwen Printing Agency of DUT NA 15 RMB Paper Priting Intro and survey paper for Wikimedia Tour in Dalian Receipts not provided by this vendor
2013-07-31 NA Shanghai Yichen NA 204 RMB postcard making Sending Postcard Project Receipt 03
2013-08-01 NA Shanghai China Post NA 37.8 RMB 9 shipment on "registered mail" 1st "Prize for Repost" Receipt 04
2013-08-01 NA Shanghai YUNDA Ltd NA 6 RMB 1 shipment on "express mail" 1st "Prize for Repost" Receipt 05
2013-08-12 9:12 Hong Kong 7-Eleven NA 66 HKD International Stamp 1st Sending Postcard Receipt 06
2013-08-12 9:12 Hong Kong 7-Eleven NA 10 HKD Glue 1st Sending Postcard Receipt 06
2013-11-05 NA Shanghai Ordos Market NA 120 RMB Postage 100 postage, 2nd Sending Postcard Receipt 07
2013-11-14 03:21 PM Columbus, OH Clintonville Finance Po NA 3.3 USD Domestic Postage 10 postage, 2nd Sending Postcard Receipt 08
2013-11-14 03:21 PM Columbus, OH Clintonville Finance Po NA 16.5 USD International Postage 15 postage, 2nd Sending Postcard Receipt 08
2013-11-16 NA Shanghai Fuyoumen Market NA 120 RMB 100 Postage, used for sending souvenir WLM Promoting Receipt 09
2013-11-16 NA Shanghai Ordos Market NA 25 RMB 100 Envelop, used for sending souvenir WLM Promoting Receipt lost
2013-11-17 NA Shanghai Fuyoumen Market NA 120 RMB Postage 100 Postage, 2nd Sending Postcard Receipt lost
2013-11-19 NA Shanghai Yunda NA 16 RMB Shipment souvenir Receipt 10
2013-11-19 NA Shanghai Yunda NA 6 RMB Shipment souvenir Receipt 11
2013-11-19 NA Shanghai Yunda NA 16 RMB Shipment souvenir Receipt 12
2013-11-19 NA Shanghai Yunda NA 12 RMB Shipment souvenir Receipt 13
2013-11-19 NA Shanghai Yunda NA 10 RMB Shipment souvenir Receipt 14
2013-11-19 NA Shanghai Yunda NA 10 RMB Shipment souvenir Receipt 15
2013-11-19 NA Shanghai Yunda NA 12 RMB Shipment souvenir Receipt 16
2013-11-19 NA Shanghai Yunda NA 8 RMB Shipment souvenir Receipt 17
2013-11-19 NA Shanghai Yunda NA 6 RMB Shipment souvenir Receipt 18
2013-11-19 NA Shanghai Yunda NA 6 RMB Shipment souvenir Receipt 19
Total: 34.8 USD, 755.8 RMB (124 USD),76 HKD (10 USD)=168.8

Remaining funds[edit]

Do you have any unspent funds from the grant?

Please answer yes or no. If yes, list the amount you did not use and explain why.

  • Yes, 131.2 USD; Did not send all merchandise and postcards due to many reasons(like people's privacy concern, less activity than planed), used cheaper way on shippment(we planed to use express mail to send all, but realize it just cost little bit expensive than what we send, so most sent through "first class" mail)

If you have unspent funds, they must be returned to WMF, please see the instructions for returning unspent funds and indicate here if this is still in progress, or if this is already completed:

  • yes

Documentation[edit]

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grantsadmin(_AT_)wikimedia.org, according to the guidelines here?

Please answer yes or no. If no, include an explanation.

  • Yes

Confirmation of project status[edit]

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?

Please answer yes or no.

  • Yes

Is your project completed?

Please answer yes or no.

  • Yes

Grantee reflection[edit]

We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on what this project has meant to you, or how the experience of being an IEGrantee has gone overall. Is there something that surprised you, or that you particularly enjoyed, or that you’ll do differently going forward as a result of the IEG experience? Please share it here!


One thing much more important than real money funded by WMF is, the connection between the local community and Wikimedia Foundation. There are three chapters majorly working on Chinese Wikipedia, but only Wikimedia Hong Kong has strong relation with globe community currently. One Chinese proverbs goes, do not close the door and do business by yourself. It is really important for our community, and even other communities far from editing center of Wikipedia get involved in globe Wikimedia Movement. It's always helpful to learn what other did and share own experience.

To me, social media will be my focus even without grant, which may cost more time to achieve the current level, but the opportunity cost can not simply measured by money and time. This is one of the features of the individual Engagement Grant I thought, small fund can make great differences.

I'd like to say thanks to Siko Bouterse, the head of Individual Engagement Grant, who not only helps me a lot on outreach programs through social media and avoid detours on the way to success by her experience, but also gives me encourage and motivation, which always pull me out from the depression and remind me failure is only the step to the success.

I also would like to thank Han-teng Liao, who posted the news about individual Engagement Grant on Chinese Wikipedia Village Pump. Han-teng gave me lots of advise on proposal, and on the program. My friend Wilson and Ranyv did their great job on our social media program. We won't achieve today's success without their helps. David, Yue and Eric also contributed a lot to the project.
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