Blogging Handbook by Jensen Moore

Blogging Handbook Tips for Beginners

Table of Contents Getting Started ................................................................................................................................ 3 Creating a Strong Blog ..................................................................................................................... 5 Designing Your Blog ......................................................................................................................... 7 Posting a Blog ................................................................................................................................ 14

Getting Started As you get started with your blog, you will need to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve. Do you want to inform or entertain? What is the perspective of your blog? What will you do to show your readers that you are a credible source? Here are some tips to help you get started. Set a schedule You should update the blog at least twice a week to keep reader interest. Make sure you are updating on the same two days every week so you are predictable and you get into the habit of posting on a regular basis. Blogs may be handled differently for different subjects, for example, a math blog may have primarily teacher posts, but a creative writing class may have blogs maintained by each student in the class. However, a blog is not a weekly column, so it is good to be on a regular schedule, but if it is to be really dynamic, you can respond to peoples’ comments and post at other times in the week as events of relevance occur. You can even invite a guest blogger or community contributor to participate if they have knowledge or particular insight. Feel free to post off schedule if something exciting happens. Use pictures to tell the story A picture helps your reader “be in” that moment in time. By using a picture to help tell the story, the blogger lets his/her audience connect with the subject. The more your audience can connect to the subject matter of your blog, the more likely they are to become engaged. Blogs should use embedded video, audio, photos and hyperlinks as much as possible. Blogging is primarily interactive. People are there to read, but also to see examples and to talk back. Blogging platforms have many tools for embedding multiple media, and most have wonderful tutorials for making use of those tools. Studies show that the more links you have, the more traffic you get. However, just because it is on the Internet doesn’t mean you can use it. Please be mindful of copyrights and your ability to use images. If it isn’t yours and you don’t have permission to use it, don’t. Edit Foundry is an example of how a blog can use pictures to tell the story. http://blogs.nppa.org/editfoundry/ Find a point of view Many people have undoubtedly blogged about your topic or something similar to it. Find a consistent voice that makes your blog stand out, while remaining relevant to your audience. What makes your topic particularly significant in the area? What perspective can you give that will engage your audience?

Some authors are consistently sarcastic and humorous – others are consistently scientific and analytical. If you have multiple authors, you might develop multiple personalities and have them play off of each other on a controversial topic related to your blog. Bike Snob NYC is an excellent example of a blog that really has a personality. http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/ Blogs don’t have to be long You aren’t trying to create a complete repository on a topic, just discuss it and give your audience a perspective on it. Some blog posts are four or five paragraphs long with hyperlinks. Feel free to supplement your ideas by linking to outside sources, but don’t feel that you have to personally state everything on the topic. You’ll be surprised at what may surface in the comment thread to follow. Coal Tattoo is a great example of using short blog posts and outside resources to communicate to the audience. http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/ Participate in conversation After you post your blog, keep an eye on the comments and reply to them. This will help you to learn more about your topic, the interests of your audience, and stop any abusive users before they can do much damage. Dave Barry often responds to his readers in his blog. http://blogs.herald.com/ Have fun! You are writing about a topic that you know very well and you enjoy. Have some fun with it. Enjoy the experience.

Creating a Strong Blog You’ve been taught how to write a certain way your whole life, but the rules are different online. Most people don’t have time to spend sifting through large blocks of text. They’re looking for rich, information-‐packed content they can process quickly. Think about how you surf the web at home. Are you going to land on a page full of text and make it all the way to the bottom? Probably not. That’s why you need to write your posts for an online audience. Think Visual Once again, think about how you surf the web. Include photos with your post. Use lists in your post. In other words, do the work for your reader so they don’t have to. The more you do to make your post easily read and absorbed, the more likely your readers will continue to read. 10,000 Words is a great example of how images can enhance a blog and make it more relatable for readers. http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/ Optimize Your Titles If you build it, they won’t necessarily come. You have to get them in the front door first. Tell your reader what they are clicking on and they’ll be more likely to do it. Creative blog titles that show not only what the post is about, but why your audience should be interested. Mashable.com is not only a great place to learn more about how to become a better blogger, but an example of how to write titles that gain the interest of readers. Link Smart Link (i.e., hyperlinks) within your text and link often. Remember to link to outside sources that can provide more information for your audience than you have already provided. Write Short and Punchy Find a reason to write a post and get to it quick. People are moving fast online and they won’t wait for the last sentence so you can explain yourself. Tell them what first, and then explain why.

Be Conversational Write with a voice and then encourage others to join in. Using a conversational tone helps your readers realize that you are a real person, someone they can talk to and know that they will be heard. Speak comfortably, but professionally, in your blog and the comments that follow to help your audience become familiar with you and your cause.

Designing Your Blog WordPress is a quick and easy way to get started blogging in your classroom. This section will walk you through the process and show you a few tips to help you get started. Creating your account The first step to getting started with your blog is creating your account on Word Press. Go to wordpress.com. Click the orange – get started here – button.

Choosing your blog address and title (username) You will be prompted to enter your blog address, your username, your email and the language you will be blogging in. For your blog address (and username) you will want to choose something interesting and relevant to public relations. Once you have filled out the form, choose the free account and click Create Blog.

A screen will then tell you to check your email to complete registration. Please update your profile (first name, last name, about you) while you wait for the activation email. Once you receive your activation you will get a screen that looks like this:

If you are new to blogging – or to WordPress – you may want to watch the video located on the dashboard.

Creating your appearance When you log in to your blog, you will first see your dashboard. Your dashboard allows you to perform all the functions of your blog. Click on appearance (left menu) and themes to design your pages. You will arrive at a screen that looks similar to this. You will now choose a starter template for your blog. This will provide the basic format of the appearance of the blog and provide the color scheme. Be sure to choose one that fits your “brand.”

Once you have a theme that you like click activate (top left). Now that you have chosen the name, URL and template for your blog, you are ready to start blogging. You can change the appearance and layout settings later if you decide you don’t like the layout you chose. You will see that a post is already there. It is titled “hello world.” You can click on this to begin/edit your first post.

To remove the “just another WordPress.com site” subhead go back to your dashboard (top left, under your blog title) and select settings and general on the dashboard menu. You can also update your date and time format from this page or add an image for your blog (see right).

Personalizing your blog Now, go back to your blog and see the changes. On your blog screen you will see two buttons, home and about. Choose the about button.

You can then click on edit and add information to help you “brand” your blog. This should be information about who you are and what you are going to blog about. Once you have completed your information you can either preview changes or publish.

A new blog post To post to your blog, click home, and under the “hello world” listing click on make some changes to this page. You can also create a new post (and delete the “hello world” post) from your dashboard.

SEO and keywords Take note of the following on the above page: preview changes, publish, and tags (i.e., keywords that describe your blog). The first two will help you post your blog for the world to see. The last, tags, are the SEO keywords people will use to find your blog. Always post tags regarding your post content so people can find you based on what you have written that particular post about. Here I have added four tags to describe my first post: public relations, non-‐profits, service-‐learning and Baton Rouge.

Adding helpful widgets Widgets are icons on your blog that allow your readers to perform specific actions. You can include widgets that allow you (and your readers) to share your blog through Facebook and Twitter, see your blog statistics, follow your blog by email and do many other things. To include widgets, click dashboard, appearance, and widgets. On this page, you will see many widgets that you can add to your sidebar (i.e., the side of your blog). Note: based on the layout you have chosen the sidebar may be in a different spot on the page than seen here.

In this window, you can choose the widget that best fits your needs by clicking on the widget and following the instructions that are given. Each widget will ask for something different to set them up. I would suggest (at the minimum) the following widgets: • Search • Recent Posts • Archives • Twitter (put your Twitter name so your posts will go out to your Twitter followers) • Blog Stats • Facebook Like Box (will only link to our class Facebook page – not your personal or professional one) • Follow Blog • Recent Comments • Links (change links to “blogroll” instead of all links) From widgets already on the sidebar I would delete: • Categories • Meta

To add other members of the course to your blogroll Go back to your dashboad and select links and all links. You will see a number of WordPress links already exist. Feel free to select these, and under “bulk actions” click delete and “apply”.

Now, click on add new. You will see a page that looks like this:

You will need to individually add a name (usually the person’s name or the blog name) as well as the web address for each member of the course. When you have entered a name and the web address click the blue add link button on the right side.

Posting a Blog Now that you have created and personalized your blog, you are ready to start posting. It is a good idea to write all of your blog posts in a word processor, such as Microsoft Word or Open Office, then copy and paste it into your blog. This allows you to take advantage of spelling and grammar checks and also save your post so if anything goes wrong in the process, you don’t lose all of your work. On your dashboard, you will see a button that says posts. From here you will click add new. This will take you to the add new post screen. From here you can enter the Title and body of your post. You can include any tags to make your post more easily searchable. You can also format your post using the font tools (top left under “add new post”), and the justification tools as well as include bullet points, numbered lists, and indented quotes. There is also a “kitchen sink” button (two to the right of the spell check button) that if you click it shows you more tools available for formatting your post. Note: the Spell check feature on WordPress does not always work. When you are ready to post your blog, click PUBLISH. Once you publish you will have the opportunity to “press this” as well as link to Twitter or Facebook. Use these to push your blog out to several audiences. The most places your blog shows up, the more readers you will get.

Adding items to your post You can also embed hyperlinks, images, and documents files in this area. If you want to purchase an upgrade you can add audio and video. To add a hyperlink (i.e., a web link to another site) highlight your chosen text with the cursor and click the “chain” button shown here on the right. You will then get a window that asks you to input the URL and add a title (usually the name of the organization or website). I suggest you also select open link in a new window/tab so that your audience does not leave your blog.

To add an image, PDF or document file to your post select the “camera/music note” image shown here on the left. You will then be prompted to add files from your computer, a URL or a media library. Once you have uploaded the item you will be asked some formatting questions.

Congratulations! You have posted your first blog and you are on your way to engaging your audience(s) in a new platform that can encourage more discussion and creativity!