UKOLN is supported by: Introduction To Blogs And Social Networks For Heritage Organisations: Addressing The Challenges 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 ‘ asva-2008-blog-workshop ' tag Acknowledgements This presentation is based on slides produced by Mike Ellis, Eduserv for a join workshop given at the MW 2008 conference Acknowledgements This presentation is based on slides produced by Mike Ellis, Eduserv for a join workshop given at the MW 2008 conference

2 Contents Introduction Case Study Reasons For Having a Blog Beyond Blogs Approaches to Providing a Blogging Service What are the Issues and Barriers? Addressing the Issues Before You Start Getting Started Gaining and Keeping Momentum Stopping Sharing Best Practices What Next?

3 Before You Get Started (1) Be rigorous asking the questions: “Why do we want a blog?” Would it be better done some other way? Are we doing this just because we can?...or because someone told us to...? Think about developing a pilot: A project-based blog with limited lifetime No / low commitment Other issues: Be clear about ownership Work at the right “radar level”...

4 Before You Get Started (2) Before you get started : Develop a policy (if this fits with your organisation) Think about moderation: the BBC model is good Have a workflow (preferably minimal):  Write, check and publish (I like this one)  Write, send to colleague, check and publish  Write, circulate, sign-off, publish  Write, circulate, send to committee, wait three months, get sign-off from everyone apart from the Director who is away on holiday, spend time re-developing blogging guidelines, get sign-off from Director who says “blog? what’s that?”, publish just as you reach retirement

5 Getting Started Choose your platform Buy a domain name if you want....or extend your existing one (blog. or /blog) Do what you can to publicise: Link from your main Web site Link to other blogs Send a newsletter Tell your friends and colleagues Note the UK Web Focus blog has various posts (published after launch in Nov 2006) on approach taken after its launch

6 Gaining Momentum Participate: embed yourself in the community Identify and follow other blogs Use an RSS feed reader e.g. Google Reader Link, a lot, especially to other blogs Comment, and use your URL when you do Be fairly shameless in self-promoting: “I like what you’re saying but over on our some museum blog we’ve taken a different approach..” Spread the URL around

7 Keeping Momentum (1) Use your stats to support what you do Use Technorati, Google Blog search, etc Start to embed these in people’s lives by reporting Make sure you post regularly, and with high quality: Don’t post because you haven’t done one in a while... Do post because you’ve got something to say If you’re losing momentum, maybe there’s a reason? Do some evaluation of your blog: ask readers Look for co-authors. You may be surprised!

8 Keeping Momentum (2) Further thoughts: If it’s getting stale, try some alternative approaches: Interviews Podcasts Video or other media embedding Live blogging! Surveys or polls...be creative, and copy other people

9 Stopping Develop an exit strategy Be very clear with your readership: if they are loyal and you have a community, then think about the impact: Communicate how and why Talk about the successes Be positive! Make sure (see getting started) that you can extract all your content (if you want it!)

10 Conclusions To conclude: Blogs don’t just work, you need to consider possible problems – and plan for them There is a great wealth of expertise and advice you can make use of Relevant UKOLN briefing documents: “Developing Blog Policies”, no. 4, “Developing Blog Policies”, no. 4, “Planning Processes For Your Blog”, no. 6, “Planning Processes For Your Blog”, no. 6, “Quality Processes For Your Blog”, no. 7, “Quality Processes For Your Blog”, no. 7, “Launching Your Blog”, no. 8, “Launching Your Blog”, no. 8, “Evaluating Your Blog”, no. 10, “Evaluating Your Blog”, no. 10, “Addressing Barriers To Blogging”, no. 12, “Addressing Barriers To Blogging”, no. 12, Relevant UKOLN briefing documents: “Developing Blog Policies”, no. 4, “Developing Blog Policies”, no. 4, “Planning Processes For Your Blog”, no. 6, “Planning Processes For Your Blog”, no. 6, “Quality Processes For Your Blog”, no. 7, “Quality Processes For Your Blog”, no. 7, “Launching Your Blog”, no. 8, “Launching Your Blog”, no. 8, “Evaluating Your Blog”, no. 10, “Evaluating Your Blog”, no. 10, “Addressing Barriers To Blogging”, no. 12, “Addressing Barriers To Blogging”, no. 12,