+

BloggingTuesday 24 June 2014

+This Session

WordPress – Categories and Widgets

Online communities

How to blog

Finding blogs to follow and making contacts

Self Promotion

Blogging about a particular topic

+Widgets

Widgets allow you to add additional content boxes to the side bar of your blog.

These include: Links to your favourite

websites Twitter, Facebook and other

social networks Recent posts and comments Mini biography

Click on Widgets tab to view and customise. Uses a drag and drop

system.

+Categories & Tags

Categories allow you to organise the content of your blog.

Think of them as being the main descriptor for the topics of your blog.

Tags allow you to be more specific about the post itself.

Both of them function as links within your blog to other, similar posts.

+Online Communities

Social media is all about helping to create or participate in an online community.

Why might these communities be important?

Even online, people like to congregate around others with the same interests, passions and hobbies.

Using the internet, people can connect with a wide number and range of people over large areas, allowing them to talk to people they might otherwise not have met.

Connecting online can save time and money, and allows users to connect in locations that are suitable for them.

+Online Communities

What are the advantages to joining an online community?

Participation in particular groups

Finding friends

Improving confidence

Exploring self-expression

Improving skills in a particular area/gaining knowledge

Better awareness of online safety (particularly for parents)

+TASK

Create a new blog post and write a short paragraph, or list of bullet points,

detailing the benefits of using social media, and describing the advantages of using online communities.

Don’t publish just yet, as we’ll be adding to this post later!

+The Blogging Process

Brainstorm – come up with possible topics

Choose your topic for the post you are going to write

Do any research you might need for particular facts etc.

Write your post in draft form - Wordpress allows you to save posts before you publish them

Re-read and tweak your post, adding images, videos etc.

Publish your post!

+Reading Blogs

You’ll find it much easier to write blog posts if you also read blogs about your topic.

It will familiarise you with how other people blog, and what they blog about. Consider it research.

You may be able to write a post in response to a post someone else has written, either agreeing with them, or contradicting them.

It will help you keep an eye on current trends, and predictions within your area.

+Possible topics Yesterday we made a list of things you might like to blog about. Now

consider the topics for posts.

Evaluate what you do.

Review something relevant in your area.

Have you seen anything cool when you have been out and about that

you’d like to share?

Have you been to any interesting exhibitions lately?

Do you use any particular software in your area?

‘Day in the life of a ………..’

Any current news affecting your industry or area

Do you take advantage of any Smartphone apps to help you in your

area?

+Writing Posts

You will need;

A strong ‘headline’ or subject,

An opening paragraph that introduces what you want to talk about,

Your main post, which could include images, bullet points, numbered lists etc,

Your closing lines, which could be a paragraph or a single line,

Your call to action – encourage interaction.

+Promotion

If you want to start getting the most out of your blog, then you’ll need to promote it.

We will be creating social media accounts, and you can use your blog URL where it asks for your web address.

You will be able to share links to your posts on Twitter, Facebook and Google +.

+Subscribing to blogs

There are three main ways to ‘follow’ blogs.

Wordpress

RSS Readers (Really Simple Syndication )

Email subscription: Bloglines

+Wordpress

Log into Wordpress.

On the front page, before you go to your dashboard, you’ll see that they have blogs that they recommend, and allow you to browse posts by tag.

You can also follow blogs inside Wordpress.com.

Click on Recommended Blogs and choose a general subject area.

Browse the blogs on offer and if you like one, click ‘Follow’.

Now these blogs will automatically appear when you log in.

+RSS Readers

Blogs generate something called an RSS feed, which is a list of the posts as they are published.

RSS readers pull these feeds into one place, so instead of manually having to visit each blog and remember the last post you read there, you can see only those posts published by several blogs since the last time you logged in.

There are many different readers available, but two of the most used (since Google Reader was closed) are Feedly and Bloglovin.

You can sign in to Feedly with a Google account, and sign in to Bloglovin using an email address.

+Email subscription

Not all blogs offer this, preferring instead to offer a newsletter, but some blogs may have a ‘Follow by Email’ button.

You enter your email address and you will have each new blog post emailed to you as it is published.

The downside of this approach is if you follow a lot of blogs, that could end up being a lot of emails!

Following using an RSS reader or Wordpress is probably easier – RSS readers also let you create ‘collections’ of blogs meaning you can organise what you follow.

+Finding Blogs

If in doubt…use Google.

You can search for specific bloggers by name if you know who they are, e.g. Chris Spooner.

Like we did yesterday, enter different search terms, e.g. football blog, design blog, film blog, photography blog. Click on the blogs and read one or two of their posts.

Check out their ‘recommended blogs’.

If you like a blog, consider following them in Wordpress, or adding their blog to an RSS reader.

+TASK

Try and locate three to five blogs that you’d like to follow.

Either follow them inside Wordpress, or create an account with Feedly or Bloglovin and add their feeds.

At the bottom of the post you created earlier, make a list of the blogs you’ve followed, including the name of the blog, its web address, and its subject.

+Self Promotion 101

Once you’ve created some posts that you want to share, you’ll need to start promoting your blog.

Start off by sharing the links to your posts on Twitter and Facebook. We’ll cover Twitter and Facebook next week.

Use your blog address as your website address on your social networking sites, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube.

Consider creating a board on Pinterest to solely host your own work as a mini portfolio. Try promoting your work on Instagram. We’ll cover these in week four.

+Self Promotion 101

If you want to post to promote a business, you may want to create separate accounts. Or you might be happy to share what your business is doing with friends and family.

Just be aware that overly personal stuff might not be ‘professional’ enough for social media.

Post links to your work, talk about the projects you’re working on, problems you might have had (and solved), and anything useful you’ve learned. Talk about events you’ve been to.

Remember it’s all about conversation – consider taking part in one of the # hashtag communities on Twitter, or the groups on Facebook.

+Self Promotion 101

Don’t stick to just one platform. Different people use different sites, so you want to reach as many people as possible.

If you can, spend time coming up with a logo for yourself – it can be as simple as your name written in a specific font.

Consider colour schemes, or imagery you like. Use these to ‘brand’ your Twitter pages and blogs.

Most importantly, make sure you use the search functions on social media to find other people to connect with – you need to get in front of people.

+Self Promotion 101

If you read relevant blogs, comment on the posts, and people may come to your blog to see what you’re doing and who you are.

Engaging in a dialogue with other people is a great way to drive traffic back to your blog, and it’s also a good way to make new contacts.

Check out the blogs of other people who are commenting.

Make sure you reply to any comments you might get – newcomers to your blog are more likely to comment if they see that discussion is encouraged.

+Stock imagery Either www.sxc.hu or

commons.wikimedia.org are the best for stock imagery.

Flickr creative commons

Stock Xchng requires an account but it is free to sign up.

Browse for images that best suit your post.

Save the image to your desktop.

Go to Wordpress.

+Adding images to Wordpress

Write your post.

Click ‘Add Media’.

You can import from a URL, or upload an image to your Wordpress account.

Choose left, centre or right alignment and click ‘Insert’.

If it’s too big, you can resize by click on the image, and clicking on the icon in the top left cover.

+Writing a post

Using all of the work we have done so far on possible topics, decide on one you would like to write about for the rest of the session.

It could be related to social media, or it could be related to an interest of yours.

Go to Wordpress and add a new post. Write in the text box, with the Visual tab open – this will let you format the text.

Consider adding images – use your own, or try Stock Xchng.

You have the rest of the session to work on this so make it good!