An In Depth Guide to Blogging
Blogs began life as online diaries. They quickly developed to become online spaces where people could sound off about things important to them, share ideas and information, link to interesting places online and above all, tell stories.
Stories are at the heart of effective Blogging because Blogs, as part of the Live Web, are basically about conversations. They enable ordinary and extraordinary people to create content relationships without the help or interference of Big Media. Every second of every day someone is launching a Blog to talk and join in the global conversations about every subject and issue under the sun.
Good Blogging begins with reading. Go to www.technorati.com and search for something you’re interested in. Read some of the Blog stories people are writing about your issue, maybe your organisation. Visit their Blogs, maybe subscribe to them by adding their RSS feed to a Bloglines account (www.bloglines.com ) and keep up-to-date with the conversation.
Join in. Add a comment to one of these Blogs. Get a feel for joining in this new form of conversation and content relationship. Speak as a human being not a spin doctor or a spokesperson. Tell your story.
Jump into the network. Start a Blog, write your own stories. If you can’t install something like WordPress (www.wordpress.org) on your server, visit www.blogger.com and three steps later you have a Blog.
There are lots of clever things you can do with Blogs when you get going. You can add tags so technorati categorises your postings so others can find them. You can create a photo album at www.flickr.com and tag your pictures. You can add audio files to your Blog entries and so create a podcast.
But the most important thing to concentrate on is the content and the content relationships.
Content and the three P’s
Make it personal. Your Blog is an extension of your personality. You are sharing your ideas and stories. Be open and tell your readers what it is like to be you at the heart of your campaign. Make your organisation come alive. It is full of people doing things. Write about stuffing envelopes and putting up a stall in the pouring rain not just the Government’s latest white paper.
Work in partnership. Think Blogs not Blog. Help your service users or stakeholders Blog, put your stories alongside theirs and link them. Let your visitor see all the different sides, shades and stories.
Make it. You know about your subject, you’re passionate about it. You want others to understand, get enthusiastic maybe even angry. Let that lead your writing. This is a conversation you’re having.
Content Relationships: working the read/write Web
This new Live Web is about conversations, not top-down delivery of information or messages. Encourage and enable comments. Respond to them. Learn from them. Argue with them. Form relationships with the writers. Comment on their Blogs. Network. These content relationships are powerful and full of potential. Those involved in your conversations may be able to help you fundraise or campaign (and you might be able to help them) but they may also be able to help you see or do things in a new way.
Top ten tips for effective Blogging
- Write like a human being not like a spin doctor or a computer
- Imagine you are talking with someone not talking to them or worse, at them
- Tell stories. Make them real, local, personal and passionate
- Link to other Blogs and stories, become part of the community not above it
- Tag or add keywords to your Blog stories so people can find them and link to them
- Read as well as write: use www.technorati.com to find out what other Bloggers are saying about issues important to you and your audience and comment on them
- Don’t think Blog singular, think Blogs. Set up Blogs for your stakeholders and service users to use. Help them to tell their stories
- Don’t worry if you haven’t got a large audience. Look to develop an active one
- Blog regularly, keep the conversation going
- Just do it. If you haven’t got a Blog on your site, set one up on www.blogger.com and link to it