Practically speaking, blogs are a place where organizations can
communicate with participants in a style that is highly personalized
and a bit less formal than what visitors would expect to see on an
organizational website.
Technically, blogs are a type of website software that allow anyone
to easily publish and syndicate written text, photos, or video. The
most popular consumer options on the market are Typepad, Blogger,
WordPress, LiveJournal, and Movable Type, however, common content
management systems (like Plone) offer easy to implement blogging
functionality either as standard features (out-of-the-box) or as add-on
products.
There are a few components to a blog post: the body content, a
headline, tags (metadata to describe what the post is about), and
reader comments.
Audience Considerations
As you set out to plan and focus your blogging efforts, it is
critical to understand the audience you are planning to serve and
engage via your blog.
Not everyone in your online audience is the same. Jakob Nielsen calls this "participation inequality," describing
online audiences as communities where 90% of the users are lurkers who
never contribute, 9% of the users contribute a little, and 1% of the
users account for almost all the action. Check out Groundswell's Social Technographic Ladder for ideas on how your target audience might be interested in participating in your social web initiatives.
Good For
Depending on an organization's target audience and objectives, blogs
can serve many different roles. Most effective bloggers view their
blogs as one node in the "blogosphere," and split their blogging time
between posting to their blogs and participating as active members of
other blogs with logical connection to the topics, authors, or
audiences.
Reaching and Attracting
Blogs can serve a number
of roles in supporting your efforts to reach and attract visitors to
your website and new members to an organization or campaign. This
includes search engine optimization and receiving traffic from other
complimentary blogs on the web.
Communicating and Informing
Blogs provide a
platform for an organization to publish written content, photos, and
video that might be less formal than that which they would put into a
program or resources section of their website. Depending on the target
audience, blogs can offer a different kind of connection between
individuals because they are generally less formal and allow
participation from the community through comments. An organization
might want to use a blog to publicize an event, do regular link
round-ups on a specific issue or topic, or publish editorials on
current events.
The higher level value that blogs offer organizations is the ability
to direct and facilitate conversation about their specific area of
interest. If the quality of the content is good enough, it will begin
to attract a readership, both passive and active.
Listening and Learning
One of our favorite uses
for blogs is for listening and learning. Posting a blog entry and
engaging your supporters in conversation is a great way to directly
hear from your constituents.
Remembering and Growing
Blogs can certainly play
an important role in providing meaningful ways for members to
participate and be heard by each other and your staff. In this way,
they can play an important role in helping you grow your relationships
with individuals.
What You'll Need
- Appropriate blogging tool
- Clear understanding of the metrics you'll use to assess the return on you effort
- Appropriate staff resources and time
- Organizational blogging guidelines
- Appropriate audience
- Able to and willing to let conversation happen
Cost and Time Considerations
Good, well-trafficked blogs have frequent, engaging, and insightful
content. The quality of a blog is very much a function of the time and
effort an organization puts into it. Organizations interested in
creating a valuable blog should spend at least 4 hours/week to produce
one to two blog posts.
Connects Easily To
Websites: Blogs can be set up directly within an organization's existing content management system driven website.
Other social web properties: Information can be easily share to and
from most blogs and the most common social web properties including
Facebook, Twitter, Del.icio.us, Myspace, Flickr, and YouTube.
Other people's website and blogs: Blogs typically offer easy ways
for the content to be syndicated and shared across the internet.
Database: Blogs that are built within an existing CMS website can be
set up to share login information and other important user data with an
organization's website.
What Others Say
A Few Good Examples
Want more? Hear how the super-bloggers at MomsRising use their organizational blog to connect with millions of members.
