Blog (PR and Journalism)

Agenda
Who are bloggers
Types
Understanding the blogging mentality

What is a blog?

Perceptions of Bloggers? Blogging?

State of the Blogosphere 08
75% U.S. bloggers are college graduates
42% have attended graduate school
More than half have a household income over $75,000
News blogs 2006
7%-12% regularly read blogs
Nielsen/Netratings (2006)
13% traffic attributed to blogs

Four types of audiences (Pew)
Traditionalists
heavy tv, wx, mean age 52, 46%
Disengaged 14%
Integrators
tv and online 23%
Net newsers
blogs, online, technology news, engaged, 13%

State of the Blogosphere
Personal – creativity, therapy, communication
Professional – sharing of information from usually individual standpoint
Community -
Corporate - published and used by the organization to reach organizational goals
“ Blogging is having an incredibly positive impact on their lives, with bloggers receiving speaking or publishing opportunities, career advancement, and personal satisfaction.” (SOB)

Blogs
http://www.dailypuppy.com/
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/
http://www.kweaver.org/blog/
http://checkoutblog.com/
http://veggietalk.wordpress.com/
http://yogaforlife.wordpress.com/

Live Blogging
http://www.coveritlive.com/
Commentary streams live to your web page or blog
Readers viewing the commentary can ask questions and participate in polls
Post pictures and respond to comments
http://www.rjicollaboratory.org/

Link blogging

Splog
Paparazzi of the sports world
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban banned bloggers from locker room in March of 2008 because it had begun to take a toll on his players
Or a blog that disseminates spam
http://www.fatcyclist.com/

Video or Photo Blog
http://blog.nextnewnetworks.com/
http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/

Review or Tip Blogging
http://www.sportsproductreview.com/review

Going beyond info dissemination
Disseminators
Interpreters
Mobilizers
Adversarial

You must be passionate, have a desire to share and educate

Sharing – SOB report

Why?
Niche
Enhance authority and promote oneself
Build community
Help others to learn

How journalists blog
Journalists feel that info found in blogs is not credible, but perceive they will impact the news industry
Competition
Stereotypes…
Rarely link to outside content
Mimic news content
Blog corral

Blogging Policies
Don’t edit – libel
Encourages conformity (McAdams)
No opinion

Cutting out the Middle People
Editors
Comments or email
Sources
Officials, pr spokespeople

PR blogs
Communicate
Crisis blogging
Save retail
Brand loyalty
Journalists read blogs
Seek bloggers
Cannot send pr to them, you have to understand their world
Bloggers have a set of shared values, rituals and language, conferences, and are exploring codes of ethics

What is the Blogosphere?

Blogosphere
Social network or public sphere representing a community that exists in space
Links = Quality Blog
Attribution
Link to one another to build social capital
Outbound vs. within links
Increase traffic
Increase transparency
Increase diversity of viewpoints on topics

What is a Blogroll?

Comments
Disagree respectively
Extend conversation
Share links to resources
Use email for private conversations

Content
Make recommendations
Include product images
Short posts
250 words
Break into paragraphs
Post once a day (M-F)
At least one link
Must be meaningful
Detail via links
Blogroll
Never delete anything
Personal voice
Explain blogging
React quickly
Check grammar
Biography including email
Encourage comments

Writing Titles/Headlines
Communicate a benefit
Controversy or debate
Use keywords
Power words (easy, discover)
Keep it short
Don’t use periods

Elements of a Blog
Post
Video, picture, url
Blogroll
Collection of links
Comments (allow)
Categories (Labels) vs. Tags
Archives

Copyright
Embed videos from news orgs. and YouTube
Link to content, not take content from other sites

Blogs
Content Management System (CMS)
Blogger - owned by Google
Easy to use and get started
Easy to embed multimedia
Blogger mobile (send photos and text to your blog)
WordPress
Robust
Resembles a Web site with pages
Good comments spam filter
Customize CSS themes only if you pay
Both free

Blogs with Social Networks
http://buddypress.org/
Install on WordPress to create a social network to friend other bloggers
http://open.salon.com/cover.php
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=21011

What is RSS?

Identify Fellow Bloggers
Sign up for a RSS reader
Search for bloggers in your interested topic area to help
identify your
niche
Blogroll
Technorati

Next Class
Four blog posts
Four comments on different blogs
Learn how to set up a blog using WordPress
Name, URL, Title
Blogs for blogroll

Sign up for WordPress blog
1. Go to http://wordpress.com/.
2. Click the big blue button (sign up and create a new blog).
3. Choose your URL carefully because you cannot change it. Keep it lowercased.
4. Choose your banner title (e.g., Online Journalism, Happy Chickens). It should be something you can promote.
5. Go to your email to activate blog

Set up your blog
6 . Select Login
7. This is your Dashboard. Select “Settings” on the bottom-left navigation.
Change your tagline “a sentence/phrase that encompasses what your blog is about” and time zone to -7
Under “Discussion,” uncheck:
8. Go to “ Appearance ” tab, select a theme that reflects your blog topic. Click on blog link to view what theme looks like
You must decide:
Two-column vs. three-column. Make sure it has at least two.
Theme should allow the creation of pages (e.g., about, contact).
Text should not be too wide across. Difficult to read unless it is a narrow column.
Text should have good contrast with background.

Encourage user engagement with RSS
9. Register at http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/home
Paste url to set up RSS
Write down entire Feed Address
Click Next
10. Select “My Feeds” and select your blog title. You can who is subscribing to your blog using RSS.

Set up your widgets
11. Go to Widgets (sidebar accessories that help connect you to others) under Appearance .
If you have two sidebars, you will select which sidebar
12. Add Search , RSS , Pages , Links , Categories , Text , Askimet
at minimum. Select Save and Edit Widgets.
Pages – Title it “Contact”
Text – Type 1-2 short sentences about who you are and the purpose of the blog
RSS – just display item content and copy URL from Feedburner to your RSS widget

Set up Blogroll
13. Go to Links tab to set up blogroll
14. Delete wordpress.com and wordpress.org blogs
15. Go to Link Categories if you want both a “ blogroll ” and an “ useful sites ” link category
16. Go to “Edit” to add blogs and sites > Add new > Add name of blog/site, URL, and select link category

Begin writing a post 17. Select Posts tab, delete “Hello World” post 18. Select “Add New” 19. Add title or headline for your individual post 20. Begin typing post. It acts as Word Processor. Use Upload/Insert to add video, photos. Edit HTML to add video embeds. 21. Highlight a word, create a link using the link chain icon 22. Add tags and categories. Check mark categories if needed. 23. Save draft or publish.

Create a page
24. Select Pages tab
25. Edit page content
26. Turn off “allow comments and pings”
27. Hit update page

Blog Extras
Sign up for http://pingomatic.com/
updates different search engines that your blog has updated
Add your Technorati and Google blog to a directory
http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/
http://www.google.com/support/faqs/bin/static.py?page=faq_blog_search_pinging.html
Sign up for “Google Blog Search Pinging” service. Go to number three. Click “here”
Click

Next Class
Online Jobs
Meet your groups for final project
First blog post, comment, blogroll due

Blog (PR and Journalism)

by Michigan State Univeristy

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