What Publishers Need to Know about Blogging

(Originally published in Association Publishing in 2004.)

There has been a lot of buzz about weblogs (or blogs) over the past year or so. Associations are beginning to consider how they can use this relatively new web-based publishing format to supplement their current publications efforts. There are several benefits and a few risks that come from blogging. This article will give you an overview of blogging and talk about how you can get started.

What are Weblogs?

A weblog is, at its most basic, a web site that displays a reverse chronological listing of short text entries added by a single author. It is a form of online journal that usually has a more conversational tone to its writing and features the viewpoint and opinions of an individual rather than an organization. Given that, they can often be more provocative than traditional publications. This has contributed in no small way to their spreading popularity as a personal publishing platform.

The content of a weblog depends upon the viewpoint of the authors and what they choose to write about. Blogs can be a simple collection of annotated links to other web sites and news items. Some blogs may eschew heavy linking in favor of just publishing the exclusive views and opinions of the author. There are essentially no hard and fast rules for style, although successful blogs almost always maintain a conversational and authentic tone to their writing.

Popular weblogs often form a community of readers who interact on the site by posting comments on individual weblog entries. The author can quickly respond to the comments in that thread or perhaps post another entry going into more detail. This is an important feedback feature and most software packages allow for reader comments in some fashion.

Many weblogs also provide newsfeeds that can be retrieved automatically by newsfeed aggregator software. This type of software gathers the feeds from the sites you are tracking on a regular basis. It can then present all of the most recent entries from the newsfeeds it tracks. Using this type of software allows you to track hundreds of sites in the same amount of time it would take you to manually browse just a few.

The blogging software currently available dramatically lowers the technical knowledge required to add content to a web site. Someone who is comfortable surfing the web and filling out web-based forms has all the skills they need to start a basic weblog using one of the free hosted services (such as www.blogger.com or www.livejournal.com). This has been key to the expanding popularity of blogging.

Blogging has begun to hit the association world. Some industries and professions have high-profile bloggers who are developing influence by growing their readership within their industry independent of the usual trade publications. There are a few examples in the association community now. On the somewhat provocative side, you have View from a Corner Office and Association Innovation. View is written by an anonymous association CEO and Association Innovation is by consultant Jeff De Cagna. These blogs have posted very frank views on issues such as the GWSAE/ASAE merger, board management and personal leadership. These entries often generate vigorous discussions in the comments sections. Blogs such as these can create additional public pressure on the organizations that they write about by creating a widely read platform for constructive criticism. Even if your organization never runs its own blog, you should keep an eye on those that cover your industry, or even your association, so that you can respond appropriately to them.

Technoprophet is a less controversial association blog, authored by George Breeden, which serves as a clearinghouse for useful technology tips, tools and practices for the non-profit community. In my own blog, I tend to write about web publishing and knowledge management for associations. This style of blogging is more focused on sharing knowledge and information about a specific area of expertise rather than posting commentary on a particular subject. (Of course, immediately after I wrote this paragraph, George posted his views on the ASAE/GWSAE merger on Technoprophet, to which I then posted a comment. This just goes to show that you never know what these blog authors will decide to post!)

Blogs and Publishing

Why would an association want to start a weblog? There are several benefits to be had from this format of online publishing. The authentic and personal voice of weblog writing tends to attract a strong following and can create more excitement. Blogging also allows for faster response to breaking news and events as well as immediate feedback via comments. The format of short, chronologically sorted posts may also be well suited to communication needs that are not well served by your current communication outlets.

There are some potential drawbacks as well. The individual writing the blog could go into territory that make your leadership and management uncomfortable. This risk heightens the importance of defining your expectations for an association sponsored blog. Does the author have free rein to write about whatever they want in their own style? Are there taboo topics they should avoid? What is your organization’s comfort zone for material to be posted to the blog? All those need to be answered by you and make sure you have a clear understanding with the writer of what you expect. This simple conversation will probably save you many hours of damage control down the line.

A recent example of a new corporate blog that got into hot water is Google’s GoogleBlog. A staff person posted a message in the first week of the blog’s existence that angered the technology community quite a bit. Google then compounded the problem by editing the offending post (a major blog etiquette no-no). Eventually Google posted an apology and clarified their intent in publishing this weblog:

“Well, we managed to break rules with our very first couple of posts here. We started our blog with a post about recruiting and didn’t sign it. Then we changed it once it was up. You just don’t do that with a blog, according to half the Google staff and all the Blogger folk. They’ve made that opinion abundantly clear to us with emails, hallway lectures and posts on their own blogs laying out all the ways this launch could have gone better.

So yes, we do get that blogs are all about communication with readers, not processed info dump-and-run. And we get that people want to know who’s giving them that information. We also get that this is a new medium and that despite the conventions of the blogosphere, not everything is set in stone when it comes to blog style and tone.�?

The fact that such a web-focused company could execute such a gaffe is strong incentive to spend plenty of time outlining what you are trying to achieve with your own blog and get all the authors on the same page as management (or vice versa!) with what is appropriate and what is not.

Given the personal voice of weblog writing, how could an association publication incorporate a blog into their efforts? Here are a few ideas:

Create an online only column for one of your regular writers.
Create a space for all the news that doesn’t fit in the print edition. This would allow your publication to respond quickly to breaking news outside of your print cycle. Short items posted here could be expanded upon in more depth in print at a later date.
Have a guest experts contribute posts to your blog for a few weeks at a time on their specialty area, sharing their knowledge with your readership.
Create a blog for your top volunteer leader or chief staff officer to write about their priorities for the organizations and what they are doing to achieve them.
Open a special weblog for your annual meeting with breathless reports about sessions that just happened, events on the exhibit floor, winners of awards, etc.

The main thing to keep is mind is using the strengths of the weblog format (voice, authenticity, immediacy, community) on the appropriate communication challenges your organization is facing. Areas where the association needs to present a more human voice to your constituents are good places to start.

Getting Started

Creating a weblog with a hosted service is typically the fastest way to get up to speed, although it will probably cost you more money in the long run. These services, such as TypePad and Blogger, provide a web-based interface that allows you to easily create and update a weblog without any technical skills beyond basic web surfing. Some are free (supported by advertising usually) and other charge a monthly fee. Monthly fees are typically less than $20.

You can also install weblog software on your server to create a weblog. This requires some technical ability to get up and running but should be within the ability of any web or network administrator. In some cases you can hire the publisher of the software to install it for you for a fee. Licensing costs vary quite a bit among the commercial packages but are usually in the range of a few hundred dollars for the initial purchase. Upgrades and support may cost extra. Several of the server-based products are free but they come with no dedicated support.

Finally, there are also desktop software packages that install onto your computer and will publish your weblog to a web server. This type of software allows you to edit and manage your weblog right at your desk and then publish to the web via FTP. This also requires a bit of technical skill to configure appropriately as well as space on web server to actually publish the web pages for the blog. The price range for these packages are typically in the low hundreds.

There are pros and cons to all of these approaches. Discuss this with your own technical staff to see which is most appropriate for your situation. If you have no technical staff, go with a hosted service.
That should be enough information to launch you on your exploration of blogging for associations.

Software and Services

Desktop Blogging Software

City Desk (Commercial software. Windows only.)
Radio (Commercial software. Windows and Mac.)

Web Server Blogging Software

Blojsom (Free software - JSP based)
Expression Engine (Commercial software - PHP/MySQL)
MovableType (Commercial software - perl based.)
WordPress (Free software - PHP/MySQL.)