Everything you need to do in order to start a library blog, in the order you need to do it in

everything you need to do to start and maintain a blog in the order in which it needs to be done... Begin here preperation Choose your purpose Choose your platform choose your theme personal blog or work blog? Self reflection or self-promotion? hosted on your own website, or hosted by the blogging software? The former is more complicated but allows for more control Are reporting on your activities, providing links, reviewing applications or discussing big ideas? software first lets look at the two most popular free platforms this is wordpress.com - the developer hosted version. wordpress.org is the version you host yourself, on your own registered domain (ie yourname.com) this is blogger, which is developer-hosted only lets take a brief tour of the alternatives content it is probably over-simplistic to divide LIS blogs into 'types' but I'm going to do it anyway... Diary Blogs Big Ideas Links Technologies Blogs which give you regular updates on the author's professional activities - what I did, where I went, what I learned from it. Blogs which debate the big questions facing librarianship on the modern era - the future, the cuts, the advocacy movement and so on. check out: http://librariansontheloose.wordpress.com/ check out: http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/ Blogs which give you links to all the most interesting content around the web, relevant to the Information Profession. check out: http://stephenslighthouse.com/ Blogs which focus on the tech trends, the new tools, and the innovation of social media for use in the Library realm. check out: http://www.philbradley.typepad.com/ of course, many of the best blogs... combine them all together subscribe this instant to: http://librarianbyday.net/ Ideas Diary Links Tech registering your blog essential features best practice back to the PowerPoint by Ned Potter http://thewikiman.org there are still a few essential steps to take before you start blogging Part of 'Entering the world of blogs and blogging' - a workshop at the CILIP Career Development Group New Professionals Conference July 5th 2010, Sheffield you'd be surprised how many people don't do this next bit... There are a million and one features and widgets you can add to your blog - here are the essentials: Blogging has its own etiquette, techniques, and best practice Thanks for watching. To view the powerpoint presentation that comes before and after this Prezi, go to http://bit.ly/9g4vH1 community stuff visual stuff accessibility stuff Comment on other people's blogs, engage with the community ALWAYS link to other blogs you mention (and everything else); remember to use Pingbacks Respond thoughtfully to comments on your own posts An attractive visual theme is important, but most subscribers will be using Google Reader or similar so it's more vital that the theme is functional Develop a visual identity and retain it throughout your social media wherever possible Use pictures or graphics whenever appropriate to liven up your posts Avoid the use of Serif fonts (e.g Times New Roman) as they are difficult for visually impaired users to read It helps dyslexic readers if you: avoid bright white backgrounnds (use off-white if you can), ensure the text and background colour aren't too similar (as they may set their browsers to display only monochrome), and use bold where you might have used italics Above all, link sensitively. Use the 'alt' and 'title' tags properly, and hyperlink entire relevant chunks of a sentance - don't just link 'click here' general stuff There's no excuse for not using a spell-check, yet so many people don't... Think VERY carefully before publishing anything aggressive - don't forget, what you say on the internet will be around forever, even if you delete it Use punchy titles for your posts - library blogging is a crowded market place, so people won't want to read yet another post unless the title grabs their attention for a hosted wordpress.com blog for a self- hosted wordpress.org blog twitter: displays recent tweets. Always good to link back to your own social media delicious: if you use delicious, displaying your recently added bookmarks shows a little more of your interests and personality RSS: enables people to subscribe to either or both of the posts and comments feed of your blog Blog Subscriptions: some people prefer to subscribe via email; they can do that here Image: cement your social media visual identity with a logo or head-shot here URLs for all of these are in the workshop booklet: Twitter, delicious and subscribe plug-ins, for the same reasons as listed above Wordpress Popular Posts: if you display the five posts with the most views or comments, it may draw people in to explore your blog further Add-to-Any - allows people to bookmark or subscribe to your blog via numerous platforms Backtype Connect - picks up links to your post from twitter and and relevant comments from other blogs Wordpress Stats - allows you to see which posts are viewed more than others, the links your readers click, and how they get to your blog Subscribe To Comments - allows people to subscribe to the comments feed of a specific post Register the blog with Google (http://www.google.com/addurl/) Link to it from the UK Library blogs wiki (http://uklibraryblogs.pbworks.com/) Burn a feed with Feedburner (http://feedburner.google.com/) Register your Gravatar (globally recognised avatar: http://en.gravatar.com/) Put something of yourself in there. Don't be afraid to show some personality, and write about what you feel passionate about. (and don't forget to choose a kick-ass name, too...) For more info on this presentation see: http://thewikiman.org/blog/?p=783