Blogs and wikis are collaborative tools for communication and information sharing, with blogs allowing individuals to post and edit content on a website and wikis enabling multiple users to collectively create and edit interlinked web pages. Blogs are useful for personal branding, career enhancement, and engaging an audience, while wikis facilitate group projects through their open structure and version control features that record changes to content. Both tools combine elements of websites, newsletters, forums, and other media to connect individuals and foster discussion.

1. HUBS FOR
COMMUNICATION AND
COLLABORATION:
BLOGS AND WIKIS
Danielle Mirliss, M.A., Ed.M.
April 13, 2013
Social Media Certificate
Seton Hall University

2. BLOGS
A web site that can be individually edited using just a
web browser

3. Web 2.0 and new social media has opened up many new sources for
communication and collaboration.

4. The Influencer Network Is Changing
Traditional Media
Trusted Industry
Analysts
Bloggers / Media
Customers /
Twitters / Social Editors Bloggers Consumers
Connections
Journalists / Publishers
Reporters
Advertisers
“Consumers turning to each other online is not a fad anymore. Companies opening up to customers
isn’t that different from the risks associated with doing business every day,” -- Forrester Research

5. Why Blog?
• Establish your
personal brand
• Enhance your career
• Establish/Strengthen
your SME credibility
• Expand your personal
network
• Improve your
communication skills

6. Why Blog?
• Attract an audience
• Inform and interact, learn from your audience
• Share news stories and detailed information
• Influence and educate others
• Retain your audience
• Understand the needs of customers and constituents
• Energize your audience and motivate action
• Refine key messages and selling points
• Sell more product
• Recruit help, contacts, employees
• Respond to stories and customers
• Clear up misconceptions in the market

7. Blog vs…
• Website – static pages of information or sales letters
• Newsletter – Information sent to inbox, drive action
• Forum – Conversation and interaction
Blogs combine elements of all of the above

8. http://blog.sironaconsulting.com/.a/6a00d8341c761a53ef0120a91f6818970b-800wi

9. Getting Started: Research
• Search for other bloggers
• Google blog advanced search options lets you fine tune your
search for the blogs that are specific to your topic area
• Technorati search is another tool to help you find relevant blogs
• IceRocket is a popular blog and social search tool
• Twithority can also help you identify influencers for your
topic area
• Search.twitter
• Social Bookmarking sites

10. Understand that being a blogger is similar to being a journalist who writes a
daily/weekly/monthly column in a newspaper or magazine
Activities include:
Researching topics to write about
Writing & posting updates to your blog
Reading blog posts by others and commenting there
Respond to comments posted on your blog
A good blog is one where posts are fresh and new posts are
frequent.
10

11. Your Competitive Edge
• Audience Needs
• Your Positioning
• Brand Experience
• Serve your audience needs, wants, motivations in a way that is
uniquely yours

12. What to Blog About
• Talk about topics you are:
• Comfortable with
• Happy to discuss with a wider audience
• Have knowledge of (unless asking for information)
Be prepared for responses

13. What to Blog About
• That conference you recently attended
• Product announcements
• Product feature previews
• A press release that was just issued
• An analyst report that ranks your company highly (or low)
• Your thoughts on an interesting blog post or article you just
read
• The customer visit you’re flying back from
• A debate the product team is having on whether to include
feature A or feature B
• What are you thinking about right now?
• What will be important in your professional area 5 years from
now? 10 years from now?

14. Be a thought leader
• Share personal reflections,
perspectives and ideas on issues
and current events (be smart, but
be yourself).
• Have deep discussions on important
emerging trends.
• Connect with thought leaders -
engage in their blogs and
communities.
• Link to other thoughtful blogs in your
posts. Talk back and forth.
• Be provocative. Take a stand.
14

15. Stickiness
• Images = Great Idea!
• Google Image Search and Flickr (http://flickr.com) – but pay
attention to reuse rights
• Videos = Yes!!
• Tags = Lots of tags help others find your blog entry
• Links = Lots of them, too
• The more you link to others, the more others will link to you
• Promote your company
• Use Surveys and Polls
• Formstack
• Polldaddy
• Survey Monkey

16. What should you not write about?
• Anything that can only be shared under a non-
disclosure agreement (NDA)
• Revenue or sales figures
• Other than what is officially reported by your company
• Disclosing customer information
• If they have not agreed to be a reference
• Making commitments about product futures
• Anything that goes against your company’s social
computing guidelines or business conduct guidelines
• Anything that you would not want to see reprinted on
the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

17. Some Additional Don’ts
• Don’t Me-Me-Me – It’s not all about you
• Don’t force it if it isn’t working
• Don’t over-sell – give first
• Don’t use business talk – and don’t assume
• Don’t try to control the conversation
• Don’t ignore your audience

18. Single Author vs. Multi-Author
Single Author Blog
•Personal connection
•Readers know what to expect
Multi Author Blog
•Random reading - variety of topics and writing styles
•Quality may vary between blog authors, but this approach
typically produces much more volume of posts than a single
author blog
•Readers may not connect with the writer
A better approach to setting up a Multi Author Blog is to setup a
Single Author Blog and to invite guest writers.

19. Additional Blogging Tips
• Write about what you know and what you truly care about
• Know your audience, talk about things they want to learn about,
discuss and find valuable
• Link when appropriate to other relevant blogs and materials
• If you quote another blogger be sure to credit the creator
• When commenting, always be transparent about your identity and
affiliation
• Don’t be corporate or overly formal; strive for communication in a
natural and authentic tone
• Take the time to know people you want to connect with by reading
their blogs
• Start, build upon, contribute to discussions on topics of interest
amongst the other bloggers
• There is no "off the record"; any communication with bloggers may
end up on their blogs
• Follow your company’s Social Computing and Blogging Guidelines

20. Activity 1: Make a Plan
• Why are you building a blog?
• Who do you want to attract?
• What story do you have to tell?
Do some research and find out what topics are trending in
your specific areas of expertise.

21. BUILDING A BLOG
Planning is a key step to building an effective blog

22. Wordpress.com vs. Wordpress.org
• Wordpress.com
• Hosting platform that makes it easy for anyone to publish online
• Do not have to download software, pay for hosting, or manage a
web server
• Has hundreds of themes and includes the functionality of many
plug ins, but you cannot upload your own plugins or themes
• Wordpress.org
• free software that you can install on a web server
• Can install on a web server
• Can upload and install themes and plugins, run ads, and edit the
database.

23. Anatomy of a Blog

24. Design Considerations
• Choose from over 200 themes
• http://theme.wordpress.com/
• To change your theme, head to Appearance → Themes in your
site’s Dashboard
• Custom Header Image
• Go to Appearance -> Header in your blog’s dashboard. If you do
not see the option, this means that your current theme does not
support the use of a custom image header. Only .jpeg, .gif, and
.png files can be used.
• Flexible Headers
• If theme supports a flexible header, go to Appearance → Header
→ upload an image and click the “Skip Cropping, Publish Image
as Is” button. The header image will be added without any
cropping.

25. Posts vs Pages
Posts Pages
• Entries listed in reverse • Static and are not listed by
chronological order on the blog date.
home page or on the posts • Do not use tags or categories
page • Can be displayed in the sidebar
• Sticky posts will appear before using the Pages widget, and
the other posts. some themes display pages in
• Can be found in the Archives, tabs at the top of the blog.
Categories, Recent Posts, and
other widgets.
• Displayed in the RSS feed of
the blog.

26. Setting Up a Menu
• If you have a theme that supports the Custom Menus
feature, you can create and arrange a group of navigation
links for your visitors to find the important parts of your
site faster.
• Creating a custom menu allows you to do the following
things:
• Change the order of pages in your menu, or delete them!
• Create nested sub-menus of links, sometimes referred to as “drop-
down” menus
• Create links to category pages allowing you to collect together
posts based on that category
• Add custom links to other sites, such as a link to your Twitter or
Instagram profile

27. Adding Pictures and Media
• Can upload to the Media Library (3GB space)
• Add images using a URL
• Upload video directly to Wordpress using the VideoPress
upgrade ($60 per year per blog)
• Embed YouTube or Vimeo
• Copy and paste link directly into post
• Slideshare
• Special code for wordpress.com blogs
• Flickr
• http://en.support.wordpress.com/images/flickr-photos/
• Create Poll
• Need account with polldaddy.com
http://en.support.wordpress.com/videos/

28. Widgets
Widget is a fancy word for tools or content that you can
add, arrange, and remove from the sidebar(s) of your blog.
Widgets make it easy to customize the content of your
sidebar(s). You can access your widgets from the
Appearance → Widgets screen in your Dashboard.

29. Recommended Widgets
• Twitter http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/twitter-widget/
• About.me http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/about-me/
• Blogs I follow
http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/blogs-i-follow-widget/
• Delicious: http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/delicious-widget/
• Flickr http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/flickr-widget/
• Follow Blog
http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/follow-blog-widget/
• Tag Cloud:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/tag-cloud-widget/

30. Social Network Integration: Sharing
Sharing - At the bottom of each post and page you can now
include sharing buttons for your readers to share your
content across a range of social networks/services.
• Go to Settings -> Sharing page in your dashboard
• Buttons for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Reddit,
Pocket, and Digg may also be displayed in “Official” mode. Which
will display the number of shares in real-time on your blog, as
reported by the specific service.
• To configure which services you are using, simply drag and drop
them from the Available Services to the Enabled
Services section.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/sharing/

31. Facebook & Twitter Comments
Sharing - At the bottom of each post and page you can now
include sharing buttons for your readers to share your
content across a range of social networks/services.
• Go to Settings -> Sharing page in your dashboard
• Buttons for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Reddit,
Pocket, and Digg may also be displayed in “Official” mode. Which
will display the number of shares in real-time on your blog, as
reported by the specific service.
• To configure which services you are using, simply drag and drop
them from the Available Services to the Enabled
Services section.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/sharing/

32. Social Network Integration:
Publicize
Publicize makes it easy to share your WordPress.com
posts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Linkedin, and Yahoo!.
• To set up publicize on your WordPress.com blog please go to
Settings -> Sharing in your site Dashboard.
• Once you’ve approved a connection to any of the below services,
you’ll see a Publicize section in the Publish box on your post
writing screen each time you write a new post.
• If you want to opt out from any of the Publicize services for a
specific post, just click the Publicize Edit link. You can then
uncheck whichever services you want. You can also customize the
message that gets sent by typing it in to the Custom Message box.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/publicize/

33. Facebook Badge
• Visit the Facebook Profile Badges page, and select the
information you would like to display on your badge by
clicking Edit this badge and Save.
• http://www.facebook.com/facebook-widgets/profilebadges.php
• Next, click Other to get your badge HTML code
• Add a badge to your blog sidebar
• Copy the HTML code and paste it into a text widget on your blog.

34. Creating a Post
http://blog.dakno.com/files/uploads/Anatomy_of_a_Real_Estate_Blog_Post.png

35. Activity 2: Site Structure
• Create a list of pages for your site
• Create one page with text
• Create one page with Twitter feed
• Identify 3-4 categories
• Identify 3-4 tags
• Create a new posts
• Add an image (via library)
• Add a video
• Add a slideshare or image from URL
• Add 3-4 Widgets
• Connect to Social Media Networks

36. Going Mobile
• Full-featured mobile apps allow you to:
• Write and Edit Posts
• Share Photos
• Manage Comments
• Read and Discover Blogs

37. WIKIS
A web site that can be individually or collaboratively
edited using just a web browser

38. More on Wikis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY

39. http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/12/wikipedia-redesign-whats-in-store /

40. Wiki Features
Wikis are great collaboration tools because they:
•allow more than one person to edit each page.
•allow many people to add to and edit the same content.
•allow you to easily connect between pages inside the wiki.
Other great wiki features:
•expandable structure – you can add as many pages as you
need.
•NON-LINEAR - you can jump around easily from page to
page or section to section.
•allow folders as well as pages - great for more complex
projects with lots of sections.
•store FILES – upload .doc, .xls, .ppt, .jpg, etc.

41. Why Use a Wiki
• Project Management
• Tracking Industry News
• Setting Meeting Agendas
• Content Management System
• Posting Corporate Policies
• Creating Strategy Documents
• Technical Documentation

42. More Idea for Outside Community:
• Wikis are a great way to get patrons/colleagues to
participate in building a Web space
• Resource guides
• Conference
• Book reviews
• Area guides
• You can learn a lot from your patrons and colleagues!
Example:
http://prodinstres.pbworks.com/w/page/29501523/FrontPage

43. Wiki Options

44. Wiki Structure
• All wikis start off as a single blank page
• Pages are created and connected by hyperlinks
• No ownership of pages; anyone can change the work of
others
• Pages community members can add to or edit (example)
• Discussion area for each page
• List of all of the changes made to a particular page
(version control)
• List of all changes made to all pages.

45. Wikis vs Blogs
Wikis Blogs
• No one owns content • A person owns their post
• No specific organization • Organized in reverse
(hyperlinks) chron. order
• Anyone can edit other • Only author can edit their
people’s work own work (others can
• Perpetual work in comment)
progress • Posts are permanent
• Good for collaborative • Good for disseminating
group work info/starting a dialogue

46. Why Not Wiki?
• Too open (trust issues)
• Concerns about ownership of content
• Disorganized
• Vandalism and spam
Wikis aren't for everyone. If control is a major issue with the
site you're developing, then a wiki may not be right for
your project.

47. Wiki Fun!
Case Studies:
http://pbworks.com/case-studies
Lets Play:
http://socialmediacertificate.pbworks.com/w/page/6533875
5/Welcome%20Page