UKOLN is supported by: Using Blogs Effectively Within Your Organisation Case Study 1: The UK Web Focus Blog Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat) Resources bookmarked using ‘ mw2008-blog-workshop ' tag Acceptable Use Policy Recording/broadcasting of this talk, taking photographs, discussing the content using , instant messaging, blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised. Acceptable Use Policy Recording/broadcasting of this talk, taking photographs, discussing the content using , instant messaging, blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised.

2 Contents Introduction Case Study 1: The UK Web Focus Blog Background Launching Sustaining Learning Reasons For Having a Blog Approaches to Providing a Blogging Services Institution Barriers Addressing the Barriers Sharing Best Practices What Next? Case Study

3 Background UK Web Focus blog Launched on 1 Nov 2006, following comments at ILI: It was rather embarrassing to be singled out as the only non- Blogging speaker in a Web 2.0 session at ILI 2006 conference! Chose WordPress (hosted): Popular In-house technical expertise not needed Avoided possible concerns over policies, content & workflow Still happy with it Widgets are useful (but would like greater flexibility) Case Study Example of sidebar blog widgets (many are available)

4 Launching (1) The initial posts: Explained blog’s scope, rational and scope Ensured there was documented policy Got reader’s on my side Case Study

5 Launching (2) Once I’d got some readers I ask them what I should do next: Invite comments Respond to comments Comments on other peoples’ blogs This is approach which is still being taken (901 comments on 237 posts) Thoughts: Blogging, in this context, is about discussion and engagement. It’s not about publishing and workflow. Thoughts: Blogging, in this context, is about discussion and engagement. It’s not about publishing and workflow.

6 Launching (3) But how did people find the blog to start with (especially as there was a sort launch): Web 2.0 gurus (Paul Miller, Phil Bradley, Karen Blakeman) used their search skills (automated alerts for ‘UKOLN’, ‘JISC’, etc. keywords) They blogged about my blog I got traffic from them – which was sustained /11/12/blog-statistics / /11/12/blog-statistics /

7 Monitoring (1) The Technorati search engine can provide valuable information related to your blog: Who has linked to one of my posts? What are they saying? Case Study ukwebfocus.wordpress.com ukwebfocus.wordpress.com This information can be valuable: If they’ve linked to me, I might be interested in their blog I can respond to their comments

8 Monitoring (2) ukwebfocus.wordpress.com ukwebfocus.wordpress.com Technorati can also provide information about your blog: What is its ranking and authority? Who has added it as a favourite? Authority: number of blogs linking to a your blog in the last six months Rank: how far you are from the top (the smaller your rank, the closer you are to the top).

9 Monitoring (3) Blotter provides an automated graph of your Technorati statistics Useful tool Helps spots unexpected peaks and troughs Such objective statistics may be useful: For spotting trends For gaining an understanding of how blogs work For making comparison with one’s peers For getting statistics at little effort for reporting purposes But there are also many limitations (blogs may have focussed audiences, blog aggregation, statistics may be flawed, …) Such objective statistics may be useful: For spotting trends For gaining an understanding of how blogs work For making comparison with one’s peers For getting statistics at little effort for reporting purposes But there are also many limitations (blogs may have focussed audiences, blog aggregation, statistics may be flawed, …)

10 Learning What have I learnt: Writing: use of a conversational writing style makes it easy to write. Blog provides a valuable tool to document & share ideas & get feedback Open comments: helps to get feedback with a barrier to user, but … Blog comment spam: can be a problem, so an automated spam filter is needed. Maximising impact: is important for me, so making information available in many places is valuable (even if this skews statistics) Blended blogging: is great – blog on topic before talk and get suggestions; blog afterwards and get feedback Widgets: can enrich the blogging environment

11 Questions Any questions?