Helpful thoughts on writing a blog post

Writing a blog post can be daunting. You have a page staring back at you and you want to be informative, clever, and maybe a little silly. Luckily, there are several tutorials online to help you out.

The ECPN blog is run through blogger.com.
Youtube.com is a great source for how-to videos of blogging.
From the basics of setting up a blogger account and writing a post, an example of adding pictures from the internet see this tutorial.
There are also youtube videos about adding youtube videos to a blog

Blogger provides a comprehensive help section as well.

Now we’ve covered the basics and the how-to, I would like to open a discussion about what makes a blog interesting and fun to read.

  • Write about what you know: I think this is most important, and if you have a specialized knowledge of something in conservation you would like to share, that’s great. People will love to hear about it. Blogs are written by people, not corporations, and people want to know what YOU think.
  • Be honest, share your opinions, offer hints and advice, write a review about:books, articles, workshops, museums, websites, other blogs . The best blog posts are discussions that offer information, lots of links to sources for more information, and ask a questions to start a dialogue between the blogger and the reader.
  • Link as much as you can, let the reader decide what information they can follow. This tutorial can help you to add links in your posts.
  • Add photos and video if you can. There may be rules and regulations depending on your museum, and we hope to address those issues in future posts. I did find a number of photos of the Lunder Conservation Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum online, and with Creative Commons I can use the photos if they are attributed correctly and not used for profit.

    from flickr.com

  • The information I used for this post I found on this site, and this one. But a simple search for “How to write a blog post” will give you many other sites.
  • But to really begin you need to understand and become part of the blogosphere by reading and becoming actively engaged with other bloggers.

From: http://www.coxandforkum.com/

Happy Posting!

4 thoughts on “Helpful thoughts on writing a blog post”

  1. Nice work, Rose and Katie on promoting the ECPN blog and inviting folks to participate.

    I think an interesting question for ECPN and for the AIC blog is why blog? What's the point of doing it?

    And also, what is a blog?

    I think a "blog" simply put is an online publication. But I know many others view them differently and this is probably because blogs have an early history in being self centered and only personally interesting.

    But clearly there is great potential for professional use.

  2. I want to echo Richards words it's great to see ECPN opening the blog up for more participation.

    I also want to say well done for writing this 'how to', I know how hard they are to write. I have tried, and failed, on several occasions to write one for my wordpress blog. Which incidentally thanks for linking to. Hopefully this will be useful for those who might have something they want to say but feel unsure about how to.

    As to Richard's Why… that's a good question for both ECPN and AIC.

    I am not a member of ECPN, and so can't speak for the group. But, I personally would say I think of blogs as publications. (I don't think the word online is necessary). To my mind they are quite simply publications, equivalent in style and content to magazines. But without the massive overheads of printing and distribution costs.

    Cheers,

    Dan

  3. Thanks Richard and Daniel for reading the post and your comments.

    I can't answer for AIC or ECPN as to why they have decided to begin blogging.

    I hope I can talk to other ECPN members about their goals and the overall mission for the blog.

    Hopefully your questions can be answered in a new post.

    Thanks!

Comments are closed.