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Introduction To Blogs And Social Networks For Heritage Organisations: Sharing Best Practices

Brian Kelly

UKOLN

University of Bath

Bath, UK

B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk

This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)

Acceptable Use PolicyRecording/broadcasting of this talk, taking photographs, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised.

Acceptable Use PolicyRecording/broadcasting of this talk, taking photographs, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised.

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/events/blogs-social-networks-2008-11/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/events/blogs-social-networks-2008-11/

Resources bookmarked using ‘asva-2008-blog-workshop' tag Resources bookmarked using ‘asva-2008-blog-workshop' tag

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Contents

IntroductionCase StudyReasons For Having a BlogBeyond Blogs

Approaches to Providing a Blogging Service

What are the Issues and Barriers?

Addressing the Issues

Sharing Best Practices:

• Blog content

• Blog impact

What Next?

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Writing: Individual or Team?

Individual blog:• Single ‘voice’ (can avoid dissention) • Build up following “I always find that Feed

has something interesting to say”• But what if author’s interests change

Team blog:• Shared workload • Multiple ‘voices’• Possible dangers of arguing or blandness

Appropriate solution dependent on factors such as the blog’s purpose (e.g. ‘linker’ or ‘thinker’, effort available, etc.)

Appropriate solution dependent on factors such as the blog’s purpose (e.g. ‘linker’ or ‘thinker’, effort available, etc.)

Note approaches taken by CETIS and OSS Watch

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The Writing Style

My approach:• Say something

new; add some intellectual content

• Don’t tell people; float ideas & invite responses

I am also very interested to hear what UK and other countries are doing with administrative blogs, 2.0 portals and Learning 2.0. Please share your comments here or email me. (Michael Stephens)

Is Facebook really, as some have suggested, really a passing fad. Perhaps Spain is, as well And I wonder if, on 4 April 1975, anyone would have predicted the growth in Microsoft and when it stopped being dismissed as a fad?

Does anyone else have example of blogs being used to provide access to newsletters?

Blogs posts from 28 Sept – 1 Oct 2007

Congratulations to HERO for this development. Now how many institutions are configuring their browsers with similar search interfaces for their institutional Web site, I wonder?

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The Newsletter As A Blog

How about providing access to your newsletter via a blog?• Workflow processes exist • RSS for free• Comments for free • …

http://scottish-rscs.org.uk/newsfeed/http://scottish-rscs.org.uk/newsfeed/

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Promoting Your Blog

• Technorati: Already described

• Blog directories: Is it worth it? Which ones?

• Community activities: Mailing lists, training, etc. (cf JISCMail list)

Another approach is to engage with one’s peers:• Participate in email discussions & mention your blog• Give comments elsewhere, which link to your blog

And let’s not forget real-world marketing• Flyers, business cards, … • Videos (YouTube)• Blog address in email signatures, business cards, etc.

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Monitoring

Monitoring links to your blog can help to identify positive impact or criticismsYou can then:

• Build on the successes

• Address the concerns

This may be particularly relevant to public sector blogs

I also have a blogs-impact del.icio.us tag (for impact reports)

I also have a blogs-impact del.icio.us tag (for impact reports)

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Ethical Issues

What’s wrong with this:“Your blog’s great” “Thanks – so’s yours!”

or this:There’s a need to:

• Avoid annoying your readers by being slimy

• Falling for automated spam

So think:• Will readers think “He

would say that”• Does the spam ring true?

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The Aggregated Blog

UK Web Focus is also available on:• MyBlogLog• Planet OSS

Watch• JISC Emerge

http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/UKWebFocus/

http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/UKWebFocus/http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/planet/http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/planet/http://elgg.jiscemerge.org.uk/http://elgg.jiscemerge.org.uk/

There are many issues about aggregated blogs:• Who does the aggregation?• Different voices and opinions• Loss of stats (revenue?)• Influencing the community

No easy answers!No easy answers!

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Justifying Your ROI

How to you justify the expense of providing a blog?Measuring:

• Record the statistics (usage, Technorati ranking, traffic delivered, …)

• Record the user engagementJustifying:

• Does the service replace or complement other activities (e.g. a printed newsletter)?

• Does the blog provide feedback which might otherwise be difficult to obtain?

• Does the service support new institutional aims?• Does the service enhance other institutional aims?• …

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Your Advice & Best Practices

Comments provided here:• Based on UK Web Focus experiences• Documented on UK Web Focus blog• Not necessarily applicable in all cases

What:• Wouldn’t work in your environment?• Examples of best practices can you

provide?

Suggest up to 3 top tips to share with othersSuggest up to 3 top tips to share with others

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Questions

Any questions?

Relevant UKOLN briefing documents: • “Evaluating Your Blog”, no. 10,

<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/documents/briefing-10/>

Relevant UKOLN briefing documents: • “Evaluating Your Blog”, no. 10,

<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/documents/briefing-10/>