Blogging Skills Exchange

Top tips

Clare — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 17:45:25 +0000

1. Regularity
Post frequently
But more importantly post regularly

2. Character
Find your voice (you can use blogging to explore other voices)
Build a relationship with your readers
Be personal – publish photo and profile of who is blogging (unless your anonymity is part of the point)

3. Content
Current, relevant and punchy
Use images and video
Don’t say anything in a blog you wouldn’t be prepared to say in public (so don’t post when you get in from the pub and remember your mum might read it)

4. Profile
Be shameless about promoting your blog
Put the URL in your email signature
Regularly comment on other blogs (especially popular ones)
Request reciprocal links
Use the traffic generating directory tools- technorati, British Blog Directory, icerocket etc.
Be as search engine friendly as you are able

5. Feedback
Read and respond to readers comments
Keep an eye on your stats (use a map like cluster maps)

…

Blogging conventions (publishing)

Clare — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 17:30:43 +0000

Perhaps there are certain ways of doing things that make blogs more user friendly?

Formating links (adding labels, target windows)
Including images
Including video

Blogging conventions (writing)

Clare — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 17:30:10 +0000

Is there such thing as a correct way to write a blog post? Should we try and develop guidelines for blog entries (especially when lots of users are posting to the same site)?

Should blog posts:

Report or tell a story?

Be short and frequent or long and infrequent

Use proper grammar or stream of consciousness?

Why do you blog?

Clare — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 17:29:41 +0000

Why do you blog/want to blog?

Which blogs do you read and why?

What makes you return/link to them?

What can blogs be used for?
(community engagement, e-procurement, marketing, sharing research, special interest, personal therapy)

From technorati’s top ten

Clare — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 17:27:42 +0000

Technorati’s top ten blogs today include:

Boing Boing – a directory of wonderful things.

Daily Kos – political blog

Engadget

postsecret – community art project

Huffington Post – News and Opinion

Technorati rates blogs on how many links they have

Common misconceptions

Clare — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 17:13:06 +0000

They are only personal diaries.

Weblogs come in all flavors, from personal journals that are mainly shared with close friends and family, to blogs with readership levels placing them in the league of mainstream media.

Why are blogs important?

Clare — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 17:12:44 +0000

They allow millions of people to easily publish their ideas, and millions more to comment on them.

Blogs are a fluid, dynamic medium, more akin to a “conversation” than to a library — which is how the Web has often been described in the past. Instead of primarily being passive consumers of information, more and more Internet users are becoming active participants.

Weblogs allow everyone to have a voice.

What is a blog?

Clare — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 17:12:15 +0000

A personal journal on the Web.

Covers as many different topics, and express as many opinions, as there are people writing them.

Some blogs are highly influential and have enormous readership, while others are mainly intended for a close circle of family and friends.

Taken from technorati