This document discusses how Extension professionals can harness the power of blogging to engage new audiences and demonstrate impact. It recommends using easy-to-use blogging platforms like Blogger or WordPress to create blogs focused on specific topics. The document also provides tips for tracking blog usage and impact through analytics tools and for promoting blogs on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Both individual blogs by single authors and group blogs with multiple contributors are discussed as viable options.

1. Extension 2.0: Harnessing the
Power of the Blogosphere to
Expand Programming
Potential & Impact
Jamie Seger, Kara Newby
& Nancy Recker
The Ohio State University Extension

2. “Our job is not to defend
yesterday, but to invent
tomorrow”
-Peter Druker, Management Guru

3. Why Extension?
 Lack of knowledge about Extension among younger
generation (18-34 yo)

4. Why the Internet?

6. Blogging to Engage
 From teaching to Engaging
 Many generations of clientele are online:
 To socialize
 To learn

7. Possible Issues?
•Difficulty?
•Time/Task
Management
•Communicating
Impact

8. Creating Your Blog
 What do you want from your blog?
 Ease of Use:
 Google Blogger/Blogspot
 www.blogspot.com
 Professional Appeal
 Wordpress
 www.wordpress.com

9. Finding & Reporting Impact
 Where do I obtain statistical data? What kind of
an impact is my blog having?

10. Finding & Reporting Impact
 Options:
 Wordpress.com Statistics
 For blogs hosted by Wordpress.com (free)
 Can retrieve blog hit information daily, weekly, or monthly
 Top posts & pages
 Search traffic (i.e. if someone views your blog via a search result)
 Subscriber information (RSS feed, e-mail, etc)
 Referring sites
 Move It Miami County dashboard
 Over 7,900 hits since the MIMC program in March.
 MIMC program ended second week in May.
 Blog averages approx. 70 hits per day.

11. Finding & Reporting Impact
 Options (cont..):
 Google Analytics
 For use with a Blogspot blog – or – can embed into any
blog (with administrative access)
 Can retrieve daily, weekly, monthly, yearly stats
 Traffic sources (referring sites, direct, search engines, etc)
 Top posts
 Traffic map (see who is visiting your blog nationally &
internationally!)
 Export data into a PDF or similar view
 Family Blog

12. Finding & Reporting Impact
 I have all of this data – now what do I do with it?
 Annual Reports
 Monthly Mini-Reports
 List of new and updated posts (include “active” links)
 One or two helpful comments that were posted to the blog
from readers
 Overall statistics for that month

13. Group vs. Individual Blogging
 Group Blogging
 Blogs that have contributors of two or more people
 OSUE FCS blog
 Pros:
 Less amount of work for everyone in updating the blog
 Blog posts could represent a range of topics / authors could
focus on their area of specialization
 Cons
 Blog may seem unorganized, less uniform, and not targeting
one specific niche
 May require more work: checking with other authors before
posting, etc.

14. Group vs. Individual Blogging
 Individual Blogging
 Blogs that have one contributor/author
 Van Wert County Ag blog / Parents in Action blog
 Pros:
 Blog can be more focused
 More of a “high-touch” blog (readers correspond with one
author – makes for an intimate experience)
 Cons
 More work for one person

15. Group vs. Individual Blogging
 Which format is best?
 Extension staff
 Extension clientele
 Example in action:
 OSUE EERA blogs
 www.stepfamiliiestoday.wordpress.com
 www.osufcs.wordpress.com

16. Advertising Your Blog
 Boost your impact by advertising your blog and
posts
 Twitter
 Facebook

17. Microblogging:
Facebook Fan Pages
• Creating a fan page
• Inviting people to your page
• Selecting a user name
• Promoting your page to go virally
• Value posting
• Cross promotion
• Getting others to connect to your page
• Posting from your phone

18. Online Resources
 Copy of this presentation
 Videos (How to blog, how to develop a podcast for
your blog, etc.)
 Links to other social media presentations
 www.neafcs.org
 www.slideshare.net

19. Thank You!
 Questions?
 Please take a moment to fill out the session
evaluation.
 Contact Information:
 Jamie Seger - seger.23@osu.edu
twitter.com/jamies4families
 Kara Newby – knewby@ehe.osu.edu
 Nancy Recker – recker.22@osu.edu