It’s BlogIt’s pretty, it’s focused, it’s good.

Presented by Lisa Gettings, Web Content Strategist at the UW iSchool

Everyone wants a blog

You’re gonna love this blog

Define mission & goals of the blogiSchool Mission & Goals

The UW iSchool is one of the top schools for information science. We are a community of professionals focused on diverse areas of expertise relating to the study of information and its use by people and organizations.

• We prepare information leaders.

• We research issues surrounding information, people & technology.

• We design solutions to information challenges.

• We make information work.

Blog Mission & Goals

The Information blog feature the lively voices and expert opinions of the students, faculty, alumni and staff of the iSchool. We explore the many facets of information science and conduct research in the areas of cybersecurity, big data, information literacy, information policy and ethics, librarianship, social media, UX, and HCI.

• Further spread the word about our faculty research & student work in a more accessible manor

• Become more prominent influencers & leaders in the field of information science and related areas of focus

• Create an innovative, focused outreach effort that supports our iSchool 2015 initiative

• Further support the efforts of the iSchool movement

• Better highlight partnerships with industry

Be crystal clear about your blog

1. Once we have a blog, we’ll be able to

2. People read our blog because it helps them

3. After reading, we want blog users to &

4. & will let people know we have a blog

5. We will create posts per month, with in charge of editorial, in charge of posting & in charge of promoting

6. We will measure success of the blog by tracking &&

7. This blog will become content that will also feed &

8. When people see this blog, they’re going to say

What are other people doing?I looked for examples and found several models of what to do and what not to do

What is the content focus?I dug into our stats & found what we rank for and what we don’t

What are the content topics?

• Big Data• Cybersecurity• Digital Youth• Information Literacy• Information Management• Information Policy & Ethics• IT for Social Change• Knowledge Organization• Libraries & Librarianship• Social Media• UX/IA

How do you land content?

How do you define content?

What format, tool & theme?

Successful Posts: Modern PR

I worked with Ph.D. student Mike Lee and faculty member Andy Ko to simply repurpose an article on Ko’s blog. The process was quick and painless.

Response to WIRED article:

http://www.wired.com/2014/09/digital-literacy-key-future-still-dont-know-means/

Tweet:

Gidget teaches kids digital literacy at a time when digital literacy is still being defined: ow.ly/BMSdZ@MarcusWohlsen @WIRED

Successful Posts: Conference Connection

I worked with faculty member Jin Ha Lee and MLIS student Stephanie Rossi to create an article that summarized the content in the "Facet Analysis of Video Game Genres" study.

Rossi wrote the first draft and then I integrated content from a grant proposal to make it less “research-y” and more accessible to a wider audience.

We then posted the article during the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo and tweeted it 3 times, resulting in 17 new Twitter followers during the event.

Successful Posts: Retrofitting Content

The iSchool co-presented the second annual Data Innovation Day.

I repurposed a podcast from Joe Janes(and and the article from UW News) and turned it into a new-ish post to celebrate this observance.

I tweeted the article during the virtual conference with the hashtag#DataInnovation and it was retweeted12 times w/a few conversation-starting threads.

Successful Posts: Useful Resource List

Melody Clark of one of our research groups (TASCHA) gathered all the resources on the Global Impact Study over the course of a year and published this blog post.

This content is easily tweet-able and highly sharable due to ubiquitous use of #ICT4D.

Successful Posts: Hot Topic

On August 5, Reuters published a story about how human smugglers (or “coyotes”) use Facebook to solicit potential customers looking for a guide into the United States from Central America.

Ricardo Gomez and Bryce Newell of ISC (Information and Society Center) responded to the Reuter’s article with some commentary of their own as well as information on their current research.

What do your readers like?

How do you measure success?