I’ve posted before (here and here) about how excited I am about public sector blogging really taking off and I’ve even provided some tips for possible posts.  (One person took this up and has called it the Koehler challenge, which is cool, I’ve never had a whole challenge!)  But it crossed my mind that we should have some tips for blogging straight to the LG Improvement and Development Communities of Practice platform.

1. Professional blogging is smart casual. You’re not writing a report full of dry bureaucratese. Use a voice that you’d use with a colleague that you like working with, someone you’ve known for a while.

2. Catchy title! A catchy title often helps. Not like the one I’ve chosen for this post.  Let people know what you’re talking about.  Here’s one called I blame the officers.  Intriguing, eh? On the other hand, there’s nothing like being up front about what you’re writing about – like CoP blogging tips.

3. A picture’s worth a thousand words. Not really.  But it’s nice to have a visual element to break up your post.  There’s a little button that looks like a tree which allows you to upload pictures from your computer or you can click the button that looks like a little film clip that lets you embed media – like pictures or slideshare…
IMG_0296
everyone likes cake

4. Blog early, blog often. The more you get a reputation for producing good quality content, the more often people will click on your posts.  There’s really no cure for this but time and effort.

5. Blog widely. Local public services are an overlapping array of professional interests. And if there’s one thing that we’ve always wanted to do but failed to do in full, that’s be ‘joined up’.   Blogs are the one thing that can help you reach a wide range of communities of practice on the CoP platform.  So post widely, but post appropriately.  If your post is relevant to a particular community and you’re a member, add it.

6. Use the power of RSS and Twitter…

Several communities post all content from the Communities of Practice to Twitter, including your blog posts.  These are: Social Media, Knowledge Hub and Efficiency Exchange.   But don’t post to these communities unless your content is relevant…

7. Be topical! Nothing drives traffic like blogging about something people are really interested in at that moment.

8. Be brief: People are interested in your perspective, but not 700 words of your perspective at a go.

And a minor pet peeve…

Blog is pretty much a collective noun.  It’s like a diary or a journal.  It’s really nothing without entries.  A single blog entry is a post.  Your collection of urbane musings is a blog.