Blogging @ UCCN

Led by Louise Rogers, a group of UCCN-ers chose to start blogging.  In Louise's words, this is what we've been doing during the blogging workshop.  And there may soon be a few more blogs out there.

What is a blog?

Blogs, or Web logs, are online journals that are updated frequently, sometimes even daily. An update, (also called an entry or a post) is usually quite short, perhaps just a few sentences, and readers can often respond to an entry online. People who write blogs are commonly called bloggers. Bloggers, tongue in cheek, call themselves and their blogs the blogosphere.
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/writing-a-good-blog.html 

The difference between a blog and a website
Public?
Decide on a topic 
Personal profile
Viewing Unitarian blogs 

What do people like about some of these blogs?

• Snappy title
• A title that is understood and if not, an accessible explanation for the title
• Visually attractive, not too busy, no strong image under the writing, not to detract from the writing. If images attached to posts they should be attractive - copyright-free from  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page and http://creativecommons.org/ 
• Style - not too much jargon and complex language, accessible style. An open and honest approach, not being too dogmatic.
• Short pieces like poems which invite the reader to think.

What people don’t like

• To many visuals, too busy, image beneath the text
• Posts are too long
• Too many bees in their bonnets
• Too much political and religious ranting
• Overly complex language, jargon and abbreviations that are not common (OK to use common abbreviations like OK and BBC)
• Too long - not the place for sermons - consider setting up a personal website

Issues

• Confidentiality, writing about other people
• Archiving blogs which are not being added to 

For own blog

• Who is the audience?
• What do they want to know/what do you want to tell them? Information? Advice? Personal stories?
• How do they want this - words, pictures, podcasts, video?
• How often will you blog? Once a week? Once a month?
• How long will each post be?
• Will you allow comments and will you respond to these?

Blog and blogposts

• Your blog will have a title
• Each post will have a title - titles should offer a benefit, promise news or arouse curiosity.
• Do not have long, dense paragraphs
• Perhaps have sub-headings?
• Bulleted lists
• Can use contractions like don’t and can’t - this is not an English exam
• Have an easy style
• Use the word ‘you’ rather than ‘we’
• Explore different blog hosting services

Setting up a blog 

• Google account. To get to your blog sign into your Google account, search fro blogger and your sites will become visible.
• Privacy setting
• Lay-out, including gadgets
• Design
• Adding content - need to save it but until it is published it will not be viewed
• Copyright issues
• Links - use a gadget
• Polls - use a gadget
• Email new post alert - gadget
• Time zone - language and formatting under Settings
• Can write a post and set the time and date when it will be published 
• Labels for pages - determine which labels you want and list them under post settings 

Promoting your blog

• Linking to other sites e.g. UCCN, local congregation, districts
• Asking sites to link to your blog - as above
• Facebook and Twitter - can link via Blogger