Writing (Short Blogs) and Setting up your own Blog Crystal Hall, Digital Officer, Time to Change and Seb Baird, Digital Officer, Time to Change

What this session will cover Why short blogs have worked for Time to Change Content and successful blogs Structure of a good blog Blog swap time! Setting up your own blog

Why short blogs? Better experience for people People reading on the go – we can see this from data and analytics Series of shorter blogs - #StoryShorts. Better reader/user experience – likely to translate to return visits to your blog Great way to get into blogging or focus on one subject Try out a new subject, or talk about a core experience Your ‘First Times’ blogs will helped you to think about writing about a experience you had in a different way Long blogs not forgotten! Great for detail, and for readers on desktop or at home wanting a longer read.

Content of successful blogs The Power of Stories Powerful stories are...relatable Powerful stories make...you think about an issue, topic or person in a way that you might not expect. Everyone has different metrics for success Comments Social media response Data...look at as much or as little as you want! Irum’s blogWayne’s blog

Irum’s blog Bold title Frank, honest Theme of authenticity Wayne’s blog #StoryShort Thought-provoking title A different perspective Theme of strength and silence Blog examples

Blog structure Five Things to Think About The Arc – the beginning, middle and end The Audience The Angle – what’s your hook or theme The Action – stories need conflict The Answer – what was the conclusion to your story? Features of less successful blogs

Blog titles, keywords and search engines Search Engine Optimisation How do people find blogs? When showing you search results, Google takes into consideration the age of the content, the traffic or visits to the page, the links to and from that page, etc. Let’s play.....

Is it a good title? A Blog About Talking How do you tell someone that you’re depressed? Living with emotionally unstable personality disorder I talked about mental health with my friend &now I am going to talk to more people about getting diagnosed with depresion

Blog swap time! Swap your blog with your partner –read for 5 mins Reflect back to your partner for 8 minutes each (taking turns – 16 minutes total) on: What was strong about the blog in terms of: Storytelling – did it make you think? Was it relatable? How did it make you feel? Structure – has it got a beginning, middle and end? Does it carry a theme through? SEO – does the title reflect the content of the blog? What could have been better in terms of: Storytelling – was it missing a ‘hook’? Structure- did it not flow well? Was it a chunk of text? SEO – was the title too long? Too generic?

Setting up your own blog Free platforms Wordpress.com Blogger Tumblr Paid Wordpress.org TypePad Tumblr How to choose the right platform? Conventional blogging or Tumblr? Free or self-hosted?

Driving traffic to your blog Online and social media Facebook Twitter Be nice to people! Re-post older content

Driving traffic to your blog Other tips for publicity Write more! Look for partnerships Publish to a regular schedule Titles & Keywords Social sharing buttons

Analysing performance Most blogging platforms have built-in analytics platforms. You can look at: Raw numbers of views/visitors Demographic data Popular times of the day/week How people are coming to your blog Using analytics is an imperfect science – requires some creative thinking.

Feedback & Boundaries Feedback & conversation can be a great part of blogging, but you may also need to manage it Blog comments You can turn them off & on Moderate the comments before they appear You can respond to comments or not. Building relationships via social media – your choice.

Useful links Tools for helping you to decide on blog titles: Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator - Google AdWords Keyword Planner – - free to set up Blogging links in your Little Book of Storytelling

Thank you Thank you