A Sprout! Workshop

Blogging 101Blogging for a cause

an arts & social sciences graduate, trained in the media, working in

an educational technology department, who guides heritage walks

and struggles with the eternal question: why?

A short introKenneth Pinto

How about you?

Do you blog?

What do you use to blog?

Blogger

LiveJournal

WordPress

Multiply

Something else

Who has used...?

Facebook

Flickr

Twitter

YouTube

Firefox

Section 1

Reconceptualizing blogs

What is a blog?

Dr danah boyd, Social Media Researcher

Medium not genre

DiaryPersonal publishing

Section 2

Why blog?

Simple to administer

Google Juice

You have something important to share

Personal archive,public resource

Section 3

Considerations

Occasional post on personal blog

orTopical blog

Which blog engine?

Blogger or WordPress(both have great Google Juice)

Which blog engine?

Blogger

Easiest

Most popular

Most flexible

WordPress

Static Pages

Categories & tags

Choosing a layout or theme

Simple is best

Good or Bad?

Can be fancy but...

It’s all about readability

Fonts

Font size

Colour combinations

Each post must have its own page

Section 4

Important bits and pieces

Important parts

Title

Permalink

Date

Archives - Categories/Tags/Keywords

Archives - Date

Search field

Blogroll

RSS Feed

Section 5

Writing a post

Who is the audience?

Dedicated posts on personal blogs

Broad or narrow scope?

Man bites dog: the importance of a good title

Grab attention!

Catchy

Meaningful

Evaluate these:

My trip to Sungei Buloh

Surprising Sungei Buloh

Guess what I saw at Sungei Buloh

The crocodile looked me in the eye

Fleshing out the post: 5 Ws 1 H

1000 words

Section 6

Photos and videos

Take your ownColleen aka Damselfly

will cover photography later

Or use other people’s photos and videos

Did he just say,“Use other people’s photos and videos?”

Creative Commonshttp://creativecommons.org/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/budak/

http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/

Contributeyour photos and videos

for others’ use too!

Section 7

Not just about producing content

Reading others’ blogs

Commenting on others’ blogs

(provide encouragement and give information)

Highlighting and linking to others’ content

Section 8

Credibility & Community

Networking: both realspace and online

Provide accurate and timely information

Look out for events and invite others for walks

Other bloggers will highlight you if you are

credible

Section 9

Social Media Ecosystem

Facebook, Twitter, Posterous

Section 10

Blog Sustainability

How frequent should I post?

Blogging takes effort - pace yourself

Lazy?Save drafts for later

Blog fatigue - hiatus doesn’t mean stop

everything

Section 11

Three takeaways

No blog is an island

Google is your friend

Maintain a presence