What Makes a Good Blog Is There Any Point in Blogging In the age of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram?

#DIF12Is There Any Point in BloggingIn the age of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram?Neville Hobson @ #FTDLW12October 10, 2012@jangles Neville Hobson @jangles

http://www.nevillehobson.com/ http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/ Neville Hobson @jangles

http://mashable.com/2012/08/22/the-internet-a-decade-later/ Neville Hobson @jangles

Neville Hobson@jangles

Neville Hobsonhttp://www.go-gulf.com/blog/60-seconds @jangles

http://newsroom.fb.com/News/One-Billion-People-on-Facebook-1c9.aspx Neville Hobson @jangles

May 2, 2005:The Real Start Neville Hobson @jangles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog Neville Hobson @jangles

A Blog Is… A website with: • Reverse chronologically-ordered content • Personality • Commenting • Trackbacks (links to other content) • Auto-distribution aka subscriptions (RSS, email) http://conversation.cipr.co.uk/ Neville Hobson @jangles

In the Early Days Neville Hobson @jangles

What About Micro Blogging? Neville Hobson @jangles

...And Audio Blogging? http://audioboo.fm/Jangleshttp://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/ Neville Hobson @jangles

Video? http://techfluff.tv/ Neville Hobson @jangles

Social Networking Sites? Neville Hobson @jangles

Other Social Places? Neville Hobson @jangles

It’s not really about the platform.It’s more about the content.What you want to achieve.How you’d like to engage with others. Neville Hobson @jangles

Getting Started• What are the first steps?• Carefully planned or ‘happen by osmosis’?• Formally embraced?• How do you guide employees? Neville Hobson @jangles

ResponsibilitiesEmployer: Employee:• Establish the framework • Use your own common under which employees can sense on what you say blog in their workplace about your employer and• Invite employees to issues in your workplace, participate in creating the whether you blog internally guidelines that make it clear or publicly what the ground rules are • The responsibility for this is• Communicate them to yours, as are the employees in a way that consequences if you dont they clearly understand use your common sense• The responsibility for this is yours, as are the consequences without clear guidelines Neville Hobson @jangles

Who Should Blog?• Corporate communications, employee communications, PR, marketing, HR, investor relations, sales, customer service, public affairs, community relations… - Internally: thought leadership, sharing thinking and knowledge; news, information - Externally: engaging with customers• Who else? - What about the CEO? Neville Hobson @jangles

The Communicator’s Role• Counsellor, adviser and guide - On communication, not blogging• Hands-off role - Absolutely no anonymous ghost writing for the CEO Neville Hobson @jangles

Not the Communicator’s Rolehttp://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2007-04-26/ Neville Hobson @jangles

Finding Influential Voices Neville Hobson @jangles

What Makes a Good Blog / Post?• Write informally, conversationally, avoiding jargon, and with passion• Write something that others will find useful• Think about keywords - Keywords drive search• Write an eye-catching relevant headline• Attribute, cite, link• Make your post easy to share• Post frequently - Google loves frequently-published content like blog posts: the more you publish, the more you link, the more you get shared, the higher up you’ll appear in search results Neville Hobson @jangles

Write an eye-catching relevant headlineYour blog or news site may be great butwhen I get your posts in my RSS reader... Neville Hobson @jangles

In Summary• It’s about the content not the platform• You’re telling a story not writing a press release or a sales brochure• Be selfless and generous in your references to others• Disclose any conflict of interest - If in doubt, always disclose• Make your content eminently shareable• Be clear on your strategy and the measurable goal you wish to achieve Neville Hobson @jangles

Hands On• Online - Walk-through a WordPress blog - The difference between posts and pages - Creating a post - Publishing a post - Leaving a comment• A look at offline editors Neville Hobson @jangles

#DIF12Is There Any Point in BloggingIn the age of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram?Neville Hobson @ #FTDLW12October 10, 2012@jangles Neville Hobson @jangles