Matt CornockUniversity of York

Introducing blogs

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What is a blog?

Type of website Specific audience

Way of disseminating

content

Formed of ‘posts’

Clearly defined purpose

Way of provoking discussion

What types of blog are there?

Local GlobalEducate Entertain

Personal Professional

Why blog?

• Establishing your online presence• Discussion with niche interests• Self-promotion• Process of re-thinking an issue• Ownership and individual voice

Blog aims

• Must be interesting and/or useful• Not a journal article• Must be digestible • Engage and encourage discussion

Features of a blogTitle / logo Navigation / pages

Post title

Previous posts

Twitter / social media

Post content

Tags Commenting

Features of a blog

• Clear title / branding• Tag line• Posts– Title– Date– Author– Tags

• About page• Contact / contributor

details

• Recent posts block• Twitter block• Commenting• Blog roll

Task

• Plan your blog [Task A]• Sign up to Wordpress [Task B]• Create your blog site [Tasks C and D]– Think carefully about your web address

(Handout provided)

Writing style

Considerations• Write for a specific

audience• Titles are crucial• First lines of the first

paragraph are crucial• Structure the post with

headings• Beginning, middle, end• Reflection, not description

Writing for an audience

Official vs unofficial capacity

International vs local

Prior knowledge and academic level

Acronyms, abbreviations, technical terms

Academic reference vs casual references/linking

Search engine friendliness

Good practice• Precise use of keywords• Well-structured with

headings• Getting to the point in the

first few lines• Selected linking out

Bad practice• Keyword stuffing• Headlines that are long• Sub-headlines that are

abstract• Paying for links to your site

Blog post workflow

Write Post

Preview Draft Publish

Tags and categories

Tags• Search-friendly• Collect together similar

posts• Summarises post

content

Categories• Search-friendly• Collect together similar

posts• Summarises blog

content

Good for larger sitesEssential for search

Task

• Plan your first posts [Task E]• Write your About page [Task F]• Remove the ‘Hello World’ post [Task I]• Write your first blog post(s) [Task H]• Tweet about it!

(Handout provided)

Beyond text

• Include images that represent your topic– Creative Commons– Public Domain– NOT Google Images

• Infographics and charts– infogr.am– visual.ly

Matt CornockUniversity of York

Measuring impact

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Twitter

• Retweets• Mentions• Favorites• Bit.ly + stats

Blogs

• Hits• Commenting• Linking

• Allow time

Tweets and citations

‘Highly tweeted articles were 11 times more likely to be highly cited than less-tweeted articles’

Eysenbach, G. (2011) ‘Can Tweets Predict Citations?’, Journal of Medical Internet Research, 13(4). http://www.jmir.org/2011/4/e123/

High impact blogs

• Make authors aware of your work• Guest post

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2011/11/15/world-bank-dissemination/

Tools

• Impactstory.org• http://technorati.com/• http://www.bing.com/toolbox/submit-site-url• https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

submit-url?continue=/addurl• Academia.edu

General promotion

• Email signatures• Department profiles• Cross-linking between services

References• Ashton, M. (2011) The benefits of academic blogging, Dr Matthew Ashton’s Politics blog. http

://drmatthewashton.com/2011/05/08/the-benefits-of-academic-blogging/ (Accessed on 10 July 2012). • Evans, J. and Day, A. (2014) Twitter for Researchers [Prezi]. http://prezi.com/f9ivxz4pkloj/twitter-for-researchers/ (Accessed on 11

February 2014). • Golash-Boza, T. (2011) So, You Want to Start an Academic Blog? Four Tips to Know Before You Start, Get A Life, PhD. http://

getalifephd.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/so-you-want-to-start-academic-blog-four.html (Accessed on 10 July 2012). • Heathfield, S. M. (N.D.) Blogging and Social Media Policy Sample, Human Resources, About.com. http://

humanresources.about.com/od/policysamplesb/a/blogging_policy.htm (Accessed on 16 February 2012). • Johnson, K. A. (2011) ‘The effect of Twitter posts on students' perceptions of instructor credibility’, Learning, Media and Technology,

36(1), 21-38. • Might, M. (N.D.) 6 blog tips for busy academics. http://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-blog-as-an-academic/ (Accessed 18 February

2014).• Mollet, A., Moran, D. and Dunleavy, P. (2011) Using Twitter in university research, teaching and impact activities: a guide for academics

and researchers. LSE Public Policy Group. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/files/2011/11/Published-Twitter_Guide_Sept_2011.pdf (Accessed on 11 February 2014).

• Patel, N. (2011) Neil Patel’s Guide to Blogging, Quicksprout. http://www.quicksprout.com/2011/11/14/neil-patels-guide-to-blogging/ (Accessed on 16 February 2012).

• Patel, S. (2011) 10 Ways Researchers Can Use Twitter. Networked Researcher. http://www.networkedresearcher.co.uk/2011/08/03/10-ways-researchers-can-use-twitter/ (Accessed on 11 February 2014).

• Potter, N. (2013) Blogging in academia [Prezi]. http://prezi.com/56puh4lelpgw/blogging-in-academia/ (accessed on 18 February 2014). • Potter, N. (2013) Twitter for Researchers [SlideShare]. http://www.slideshare.net/thewikiman/twitter-for-researchers-22968557

(Accessed on 11 February 2014). • Rowse, D. (2005) Ten Tips for writing a blog post, Problogger. http

://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/12/30/tens-tips-for-writing-a-blog-post/ (Accessed on 16 February 2012).