The ‘A Wiki Minute’ Video Series: Explaining the Wikimedia Movement One Minute at a Time

Have you ever tried explaining the free knowledge movement to your cousin? Or maybe you’ve struggled to describe to your neighbor how misinformation is addressed on Wikipedia? Or perhaps all of your friends ask you about the Fundraising messages on Wikipedia?

If any of this sounds familiar, then you should take a look at the A Wiki Minute animated video series created by the Wikimedia Foundation’s Communications department. As of this writing, this series explains the answers to common questions about the Wikimedia movement through 13 engaging, one-minute videos, available in six different languages.

The A Wiki Minute project began in 2023 with 10 “basic” questions, each explaining a core part of the Wikimedia ecosystem, like “How does Wikipedia work?”; “How can you join the Wikimedia free knowledge movement?”; or “What makes a Wikipedia article unique?”. The purpose of this content was to create evergreen content that could support our initiatives and campaigns in a simple and straightforward manner. Earlier this year, we created 3 more videos, to clarify ”How does Wikipedia protect readers’ Privacy?”; “Who is in charge of content on Wikipedia?”; and “What makes Wikipedia different from social media platforms?”.

But how effective are these videos in building understanding and even affinity for Wikimedia and our projects? In order to measure the “health” of our brand, we run recurring and ad-hoc surveys to assess how Wikimedia brands are resonating with global audiences. One important metric we track is the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which indicates the strength of the Wikipedia user experience and our brand reputation overall.

We applied this question to surveys about A Wiki Minute videos in the US and Nigeria, asking: “How LIKELY is it that you would RECOMMEND Wikipedia to a friend or colleague, after having watched the video?” We were excited by the positive impact of these videos to our NPS score in both markets. After watching a single minute video, NPS scores went up 16 to 38 points above our baseline in the US and increased 21 to 24 points above our baseline in Nigeria. The evidence is clear: these videos increase affinity for Wikipedia and our other projects, and they work well in educating folks about our movement.

The Foundation has found numerous opportunities to promote these videos, particularly in support of Communications campaigns like Open the Knowledge: Stories, Journalism Awards, Knowledge is Human, and Wikipedia Needs More Women. They’re also being used consistently by our PR and social media teams to increase understanding of the Wikimedia movement and ecosystem. 

But we’ve been excited to hear that many Wikimedians have also started to find ways to incorporate these videos in their work as well. For example, French Wikipedia added a video to their Wikipedia in Brief page, and the Celebrate Women project added videos to their meta page. We’d love to hear more of your stories of how you’ve been able to leverage the A Wiki Minute videos in your work. Share how you’re using these videos on our Meta-wiki talk page, and inspire other community members to share these videos far and wide.