This document outlines a workshop on using blogs to share knowledge and engage communities online. It discusses how blogs fit alongside other organizational activities and shares the presenter's experience with an institutional blog. The document also contrasts individual and multi-author blogs. Additionally, it provides examples of tools that can be used to develop an online community and engagement through social media and blogging. The workshop aims to help participants reflect on using blogs and online engagement strategies.

1. From academic blog to networked
scholarly community:
Lessons from the LSE Impact Blog
CILIP Multimedia and Information Technology Group (MmIT) Conference Sept 2015
Sierra Williams
Managing Editor of the LSE Impact Blog

3. Workshop Overview
● Where do blogs fit in the wider knowledge
sharing landscape?
● How can blogs work alongside other core
organisational activities?
● What has been your experience of an
institutional blog? (helpful/useless)
● What would a community-approach to
online engagement look like for you?
● Top 5 tools for a consistent online presence
● Creating your own digital strategy and
reflection on the last two days

4. Journal Article Blog article
Length 8,000 words 800-1000 words
Timing Yearly Weekly
Multimedia Black and white charts? Colour, audio, video
Audience Tens or hundreds Potentially thousands
Availability Paywall Open Access
Blog article vs journal article

5. Discipline % not cited
Medicine 12
Natural sciences 27
Social sciences 32
Humanities 82
Source: Dahlia Remler (2014). “Are 90% of academic papers really never cited?” LSE Impact Blog

6. Individual vs multi-author blogs
Individual Blog Multi-Author blogs (PPG-run blogs)
Posts 1-3 per week 2-3 per day
Social Media Fit around work schedule 1 tweet every hour with Managing
Editors responsible for active
engagement
Multimedia Whatever the author can manage 1 team member for 8 blogs dedicated
to podcasts, videos, special features
Audience/
Public
Engagement
Those interested in your work Those interested in clearly
communicated research findings,
evidence-based discourse, general
topics
University support n/a We provide training and editorial
support for academics internal and
external to LSE.
Control Full control of content, platform,
direction
LSE server and CMS limitations;
Academic editorial board structure.

8. Capturing and communicating new process of
research impact
Source: Xianwen Wang (2014). “From Attention to Citation: What are altmetrics and how do they
work?” LSE Impact Blog

10. What has been your experience of an institutional blog?
(helpful/useless)
What would a community-approach to online
engagement look like for what you want to do?
What need is social media/blogging addressing?
How does your social media use fit with the wider
landscape of librarian services (or other work context)?
Workshop reflection

11. Top 5 tools for online community
development
● Connect Tweetdeck
● Schedule Buffer
● Inform Good RSS reader (I use feedly)
● Visual Search.creativecommons.org
● Learn Tracking spreadsheet (Google
spreadsheet)

14. Source: Gartner Hype Cycle, by Jeremy Kemp (CC BY-SA 3.0) mentioned in Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s
piece on Scholarly Communities (LSE Impact Blog, 6 January 2015)

15. For more details:
The Impact of the Social Sciences
(Sage, 2014)
Maximising the Impacts of your
Research: A handbook for social
scientists (2011)
Using Twitter in University Research,
Teaching and Impact Activities:
A guide for academics and researchers
(2011)Email:
impactofsocialsciences@lse.ac.uk
Twitter: @lseimpactblog
Facebook: Impact of Social Sciences