Weblog
Apr 16, 03:53 am: Week 5: Start your blog engine
You’ve spent the last month building your expertise by collecting and sharing articles and building your network by connecting with people on twitter. It’s time to pull this together on your very own blog.
There’s a squidgy bit right here that we have to get over: I don’t actually know you. I mean, I have an idea of who are you. You are an individual. And you want to make a change in the world. And maybe these articles are helping you. I hope they are helping you. But I don’t want resources you have available to you. Are you the decision maker in an organization? Are you working toward a specific change on and off the clock? Do you just want the people in charge of your local waterfront to start making decision that have some hope of being connected to good ideas? That’s all the part I don’t know.
So, you may have to tweak what I write below to meet your needs and, more importantly, to better match the resources you have available to you in this change you are trying to make.
Me? I’m going to keep with the assumption that you are like most of us: struggling to understand your own influence, figuring out how to work collaboratively and with people you’ve never meet, and wishing that there was something in the world that is different from what it is today.
And I’m going to tell you to start a blog at WordPress.
First let, me take some pressure off of you: You aren’t going to tell anyone you’re blogging. At least not yet. This week you are going to spend time writing some practice posts, tweaking layouts and figuring out how to best incorporate the work you are already doing. You are going to put some basic web analytics into place so that you can get some feedback on your work.
Spend a few minutes (or more) thinking through the name of your blog and the tag line. These need to make your mission and intent clear. And they need to be something that you can live with.
Test them out, if you want, on a friend or two (you can even use the direct message feature of twitter to ask the question). Go through your feed and think about the names you like and how you can apply those qualities to your own blog name. I’m not too good at this. 337 really is my extension.
Go to WordPress and sign in for an account and start your new blog. All you need to get this going is that blog name.
One you’ve done that, follow the instructions to log in. The first thing that you are going to do is set up your layout. Do this by clicking on “Design”. Page through the designs and just look at them. You need to choose something that provides a sidebar (you’re going to connect to some of your other work there) and is, frankly, something you can look at over and over again.
Okay. Got your design? Good. Go ahead and click on it to activate (trust me when I say this is very easy. Anyway, remember that you haven’t told anyone about this yet. Don’t worry. No one will see you change your mind).
Now, let’s add some of the work that you’ve been doing. You are, by the way, going to impress yourself.
Once you’ve activated your theme, you’ll see some options next to it. Select “widgets”. First, choose the “About” widget. First choose the “Text” widget. Once you select “Add”, you’ll see it appear on the right side of your screen. Hit “edit” and some text introducing yourself. Spend some time writing this (again, look at the websites you like and see how the authors of those sites introduce themselves). You can start by simply saying your name and clearly stating the change that you are working for. You can even use that as a formula “Hi. I’m NAME. I’m looking forward to the day when CHANGE. Please feel free to contact me at EMAIL.” It really can be that simple.
Now add a second “Text” widget. You’ll be adding something to it later.
Finally, add the “RSS” widget. Same deal. Look over on the right so that we can edit. In a new browser tab or window, pop open your ma.gnolia page. Grab the RSS feed (look down on the bottom, right above your contacts) and add it to the RSS widget. Be sure to hit save. Now go look at what you’ve made.
Sure, you have that goofy example post. But you are working on something important and you have some links from important headlines and those links will automatically change every time you add something new to ma.gnolia (okay that’s not quite true but it’s true enough).
Now that we’ve plugged those two bits in. Let’s get you hooked into a light weight stats package. WordPress has some basic stats that it gives you but it isn’t quite enough. And larger scale packages will be a little like killing a gopher with a nuclear bomb. Sure, the gopher’s dead but the whole state of Wyoming is gone too.
Feedburner is just right. You know the drill: sign up for your account. Once you get logged in, you need to burn your feed. It’s enough. Just follow the on-screen directions. When you get to the traffic statistics page, be sure to select “Clickthroughs” and “I want more”. Once you click through the first couple of screens, you’ll get to a page that gives you options with regard to various services. Choose “Publish a chicklet to display your Feedburner Feed”. It’ll open a new tab or browser window and give you a help page. The instructions are a little off (the version of WordPress has change) but you’ll recognize the widgets as the ones that you were just working on in the “Design” area. Add the text to the empty “Text” widget you added previously.
And don’t forget to hit save on your WordPress design page.
Finally, back at Feedburner, select “Offer blog updates via email.” Again, you’ll get some straight ahead directions and some more text to add to that second text box (the one with RSS subscription info in it).
You’ve done the heavy lifting. The rest of this week is play. Really. And, again, don’t worry about anyone stumbling across this. First, they probably won’t. Second, you’ve done enough to create an identity on the blog and it’ll show that you’ve just started it.
So the play. Write some blog posts. These should be on the topic of your desired change. They can be long or short. The can (and should) be building on the conversation that is already out there. And that you’ve been following and linking to for the last week.
There are category options and comment options and pinging options. I don’t want you to worry about any of those. We will do work on that next week. Right now, I just want you start writing some posts.
You’re goal is two-fold: get used to the tool. Learn how to use the editor. To remember to hit publish. To go back and change previous posts. To add images. That’s the first bit.
The second? To start to get some good posts up there. Write them and change them but when you like something. Keep it. Use this week to start to get a sense of your own blogging style. Again, don’t worry about people finding it. That’s okay. You have real content up here. Spend the time getting to know your own blogging self.
Next week: we’ll do some tweaking on the blog, add categories and tags and then start sharing what you’re working on with the world.
This is part of 52 Weeks to Social Change: Using the Social Web to Make Good Things Happen.
