Blogging 201: From Blank Slate to Blog in Under an Hour

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Blogging 201: From Blank Slate to Blog in Under an Hour

Adam GartenbergTeam Lead, Social MarketingIBM Data Management Softwarewww.adamgartenberg.com

12/12/2008

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About me

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About you

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About this presentation A few reminders from Blogging 101

Overview: Choosing a blog platform

Setting up a blog on:developerWorks

IT Toolbox

Wordpress.com (free) – including FeedBurner instructions

Wordpress.org (self-hosted)

Blogger

Google Analytics, Technorati, Blog Search

Advice and Tips

Backup

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Before we begin, a few reminders from last time

• There is no shortage of things to write about (see p. 88 for some ideas)

• There are, however, some things you should not write about (see p. 89 for examples).

• Make sure you’ve reviewed your company’s blogging guidelines before getting started (e.g. IBM's Social Computing Guidelines and Business Conduct Guidelines)

• Above all else, be authentic. And have fun.

© Hugh Macloud – www.gapingvoid.com

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Let’s get started!1.Decide whether you’re going to do an

individual or team blog2.Choose a blogging platform3.Let people in the community (like me)

know about it so we can help promote your blog

4.Start writing5.Repeat step 4!

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Team blog vs. individual blog• My recommendation would be to do an individual blog as the default option

– Lets people get to know you as a person and broaden posts beyond purely being about work or your focus area

– You will be more likely to keep up with it if you’re the only one writing– You can always have “guest authors”– If you want to test the waters, set up an internal blog; you can always copy

content over to an external blog down the road (it’ll still be new to everyone else!)

• If you don’t think you can devote time to running a personal blog, or you have a group of people that all want to blog but can’t each make a full commitment to blogging, you can do a team blog

– Beware the “Tragedy of the Commons;” it still really helps to have a lead person that’s planning on “owning” the blog

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Choosing a blog platform

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Where should you host your blog?

Less setup/maint

More setup/maint.

Standardized Personalized

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Blog platform options (p. 1 of 2)

Custom blog Lotus Notes Wordpress.com Blogger

Pro:• You own the domain,

look and feel• Full customizability• Platform support from

WordPress/TypePad, lots of widgets, help available

Pro:• You own the domain,

look and feel• Customizability (but

more programming involved than WordPress)

• You can create and review posts right in Lotus Notes

Pro:• Very easy to set up• A fair amount of

customizability• Free (with upgrades

available for $)

Pro:• Very easy to set up• Free

Con:• You need to pay for

hosting (~$10-12/mo.)• You need to do the up-

front setup work and maintenance

Con:• You need to find

someone to host it (we might be able to help a few of you)

• Fewer template choices (or more work to move to move to a new template)

Con:• It’s not a personal

domain (although you can redirect to it)

• Not as fully customizable as if you run your own blog.

• Free service hosted in the cloud – no/limited guarantees

Con:• It’s not a personal

domain (although you can redirect to it)

• Not as customizable as free WordPress blog or your own blog.

• Free service hosted in the cloud – no/limited guarantees

DB2 on Rails Mix and Mash Alex Kassabov Peter O’Kelly’s Reality Check

http://db2onrails.com/

http://www.mix-and-mash.com/mashup/mashupblog.nsf/

http://pbokelly.blogspot.com/



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Blog platform options (p. 2 of 2)DeveloperWorks IT Toolbox ChannelDB2

Pro:• Very easy to set up• Network effect of being

included on DeveloperWorks

• Makes it seem more like an “official” IBM blog

• Technical support

Pro:• Easy to set up• Free• Network effect of being

included on IT Toolbox

Pro:• Easy to set up• Free

Con:• Very limited

customizability in look and feel

• Can take ~2 weeks to get a new blog set up

• developerWorks design/layout may not be for everyone

• URL harder to share (although can do redirect)

Con:• Very limited

customizability in look and feel

• IT Toolbox design/layout may not be for everyone

• URL harder to share (although can do redirect)

Con:• No customizability in

look and feel• Limited editing tools• Harder to find, link to

Inside the data studio An Expert's Guide to DB2 Technology

Vijay

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/datastudioteam

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/database/technology


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Setting up a blog on IT Toolbox

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Go to www.ittoolbox.com and create an ID (or sign in)

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After you’ve created an ID (several steps included), click on the Blogs link to request a

blog.

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Select the “Get your own blog” link in the right-hand column to

request a blog

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Fill in the requested information, and you should be up and

running!

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Setting up a blog on Wordpress.com (free)

(and FeedBurner instructions)

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Setting up a free blog on Wordpress.com

Go to http://www.wordpress.com and click “Sign Up Now!”

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Create a user account

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Pick a blog name and title

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Congratulations – you’ve got a blog! (Well, we do need to do a little more work. Click the Login link to start customizing it.)

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This is your admin site (where you’ll go to customize things and write posts)

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First, click Design and Themes to pick a theme. Once you find a theme you like, click “Apply to my blog” from the preview page.

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You can now go to your blog and check out your spiffy new design!

… but let’s customize it just a little more.

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First, you want to make sure the title, tagline, contact information is accurate (it’ll help Google find

you, too.)

Click Settings and General to update this information

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You also want to be sure that the About page is all about you!

(Click Manage and Pages to get there.)

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Now, let’s customize the sidebar by adding some “widgets.”

Go back to the admin page and select Design and Widets.

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Click Design and Widgets to add widgets. I’m showing the

key ones I’d recommend

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We need to customize some of these further. For example: A custom FeedBurner RSS feed

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In a new browser window/tab, go to

http://www.feedburner.com

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Create a new account (if you don’t have one already)

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Creating a new feed is as easy as pasting your blog URL into

the input field.

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Give the feed a name (e.g., your blog name) and customize

the URL if you want to

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That’s it! Well, we want to customize it a

bit futher

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I recommend selecting the clickthroughs and having

FeedBurner tracking individual items and reach

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To add the FeedBurner feed to your blog, you need to grab the

code. Click Publicize

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… Choose a chicklet style…

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… and scroll down and copy the code at the bottom. We’re

going to paste this into one of the text fields in the blog

sidebar.

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Switch back to your blog design panel, and click Edit on one of

the text boxes you added to the sidebar. Change the title and

paste in the FeedBurner code.

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To add some links to your blogroll/resource list…

Click Write and Links to add some links – to other blogs, to

online resources, etc.

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Click Manage and Categories to add categories to organize

your posts. (You can also use tags instead of categories.)

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Now you’re ready to write your first post!

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Adding links is easy… just highlight your text and click the little “chain” icon and enter

the URL.

Adding images is just as easy – just click the media icons.

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Click on “View Site” to go see your post live on the Web!

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To view statistics (visitors, traffic sources, etc.) select My

Account and Stats.

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Hmmm… I meet need a few more viewers. Better tell my friends about my new blog!

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You can purchase Upgrades from Wordpress. Notably, the ability to further customize the

template or redirect to a non-wordpress.com url…

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If I wanted the site URL to be db2isgreat.com instead of

db2isgreat.wordpress.com, I could do so for ~$15 a year.

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Congratulations, your WordPress.com blog is done!

• It took me 20 minutes to go through all the steps you just saw, from registering an ID, though choosing a template, customizing the sidebar, signing up for Feedburner, and writing my first post.– Granted, I was going quickly and had done this before. I’d allow

3-4 hours for setup.

• WordPress has a lot of online resources for tips and tricks and help: Start here: http://faq.wordpress.com/

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Setting up a blog on Wordpress.org (self-hosted)

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Setting up your self-hosted blog using WordPress.org

If you want more control of your blog, you can host your own

WordPress blog.

First, buy a domain. I recommend www.1and1.com...

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Setting up your self-hosted blog using WordPress

Or you can also use GoDaddy or another domain purchasing company. Domains should be

$6.99 or so.

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Next, you need to find a host. You can use just about any, but

there are several that WordPress recommend (and

that make setup easy).

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I’ve used BlueHost, but find one you like best.

(If you pay up front, you can get rates as low as $6.95/mo – they should be in $7-10/mo range)

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Depending on the host, they may be able to load the

WordPress software to the site themselves, otherwise

download and follow the directions.

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Running your own blog gives you more control on things like

plugins and template customization

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Setting up a blog on Blogger

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Setting up a free blog on Blogger

To set up a blog on Blogger, head over to

www.blogger.com to get started.

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Create an account (or sign in with an existing Google

account)

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Give your blog a name and choose a URL

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Pick a template for your blog.

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Congratulations! You have a blog!

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You can now go write your first post. (We will want to

customize some things further, though.)

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Your post is live on the web!

(Hmmm – might need to revisit that template.)

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Select Settings and Basic to make sure the title and

description are accurate.

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You can update the blog feed to be a FeedBurner feed (see WordPress section for full

instructions.)

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You can also select which elements/widgets to include in

the blog sidebar

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Once you’ve picked the elements, you can drag/drop them onto the layout for your

blog.

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Congratulations! Your blog is all ready to go!

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Like WordPress, blogger lets you publish on a custom domain

name.

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Google Analytics, Technorati, Blog Search

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Setting up and using Google Analytics

If you’re hosting your own blog, you’re going to want to use

Google Analytics. Setting it up is pretty easy. Start at

www.google.com/analytics

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Paste in your blog URL…

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This is the slightly tricky part: You need to paste in the code Google provides into the footer

or sidebar of your blog.

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Once updated, you can see information on visitors, where

they are, where they found you, what search terms landed on

your blog, and more

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Who’s linking to me? Technorati and Google Blog Search

Visit www.technorati.com and search for your blog URL to find

people linking to you.

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Click Blogger Central/Widgets to find widgets you can embed

in your blog

An example from my blog

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Google Blog Search also lets you find who’s linking to your

site.

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You can also subscribe via RSS to get updates of people linking

to your site.

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Advice and Tips

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Advice and next steps• Decide if blogging is right for you.• Come to me for additional help or advice at any stage in the process.• Read other blogs (if you’re not doing so already)

– See backup for suggested reading• If you’re not ready to blog externally, do at least try blogging internally.• And don’t forget…

© Hugh Macloud – www.gapingvoid.com

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Tips for blogging

• Length– Don’t worry about length – write to fit the post

• Images– Adding images always helps– Google Image Search (http://images.google.com)– Flickr (http://flickr.com) – pay attention to reuse rights– iStockPhoto – Many images are $1-2

• Links, links, links– Link to others. The more you link to others, the more

others will link to you

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Regardless of platform, elements to include

• RSS feeds– Recommend Feedburner for tracking

• About page

• Statistics– Google Analytics

– WordPress.com stats

• Blogroll and/or related links

• Tags

• “Meta” information for search optimization (title, keywords, etc.)

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Tips for blogging10 Secrets To Better Blogging (From Chris Brogan)• 10 Blogging Tips - So tiny, you can fit it on a 3×5 card, and yet, I think it’s useful. • Growing Your Audience - Some Basics - Here’s a question I get often. “How do I attract

more readers?” • Basic Business Blogging Suggestions - Blogging for work? Here’s a place to look for

topics and starting points. • Make Your Blog Design Work for You - Layout and design are important. I’d like to think

that looks don’t count, but we both know better. • Conquering Fear of Blogging - Sometimes, we’re just not ready to make the next step.

Some advice. • Writing Effective Blog Posts - It’s not that I have a formula, but I do have ideas on what

works. • Seven Blog Improvements You Can Make Today - There are lots of ways that blogs

thwart your audience. Here are some remedies. • Keeping the Blogging Fires Burning - Sometimes, we run out of motivation. Here’s

some ways to fix that issue. • 20 Blogging Projects for You - More ideas for WHAT to write, if necessary.• Performance And Your Audience - Blogging Tips - Shakespeare said all the world’s a

stage. I believe it.

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/ten-secrets-to-better-blogging/

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Thank you

Adam Gartenberg www.adamgartenberg.com twitter.com/agberg

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Additional Resources

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Example blogsEd Brill – Sales BUE for Lotus Notes• http://www.edbrill.com (Notes/Domino)• Center of community – will often get 60-100 comments on a single post• Almost takes on moderated discussion forum feel

Mary Beth Raven – Design lead for Lotus Notes• http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/marybeth• Collaboratively designed Lotus Notes 8 with the community by asking for feedback on design and potential features

Chris Eaton – DB2 Product Manager• http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/database/technology• One of the most widely-read blogs on IT Toolbox

Mix and Mash blog• http://www.mix-and-mash.com• Team blog for enterprise mashups

“Turbo” Todd Watson• http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/Turbo• Good mix of personal and work topics (focused on social networking)

Sam Lawrence – Chief Marketing Officer, Jive Software• http://gobigalways.com/ (WordPress)• Lots of thought leadership pieces, first person thoughts, and interesting blog design

http://www.edbrill.com/

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/marybeth


http://www.mix-and-mash.com/

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/Turbo

http://gobigalways.com/

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What should you write about?• Product announcements• Product feature previews• A press release we just issued• An analyst report that ranks us highly• An analyst report that ranks us low• Your thoughts on an interesting article about

database compression you just read• Dropping your kids off at summer camp• The customer visit you’re flying back from• A debate the product team is having on

whether to include feature A or feature B• The 100,000 download milestone you just

reached on your product trial• The planning for the upcoming conference• …• …

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What should you not write about?

• Anything that can only be shared under NDA

• Revenue or sales figures other than what is officially reported by IBM

• Disclosing customer information if they have not agreed to be a reference

• Making commitments about product futures• Anything that goes against IBM’s social

computing guidelines or business conduct guidelines

• Anything that you would not want to see reprinted on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/12/how-to-use-web.html

RECOMMENDED READING• IBM's Social Computing Guidelines • Business Conduct Guidelines

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Above all else: Be Authentic. Be Authentic. Be Authentic.

Blogging is a double-edged sword; if not written with an authentic voice or if only focused on one-way content (e.g.,

"check out our latest product and attend our upcoming conference, but no, I’m not interested in your feedback"),

those benefits can be lost.

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What kind of commitment is involved?

• How often do I need to post?– I would recommend posting at least once a week. While more is usually better, posting

less frequently is not always a problem. As long as you’re establishing and maintaining the connection to your readers, a specific schedule isn’t as important.

– Personally, I find that my posts come in spurts. I may go a week between posting, and then publish 5 posts over the course of 2 days.

• How long do posts have to be?– Not long at all - the post length should fit the content. Sometimes it will be 2 sentences,

sometimes 2 paragraphs, and sometimes (OK, rarely) 2 pages.

• How long does it take to create a post?– It probably takes anywhere from 1 - 2 hours, depending on the topic, how long the post,

how much you need to look around for links. If you're just commenting on an interesting article or pointing out a new video, it may take 10 min to create a post. If you're working on a thought piece about the business, it could take even longer than 2 hours.