Introduction%20To%20Blogs%20And%20Social%20Networks%20For%20Heritage%20Organisations:%20Case%20Study:%20The%20UK%20Web%20Focus%20Blog

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Introduction To Blogs And Social Networks For
Heritage Organisations Case Study The UK Web
Focus Blog
http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/events/bl
ogs-social-networks-2008-11/

• Brian Kelly
• UKOLN
• University of Bath
• Bath, UK
• B.Kelly_at_ukoln.ac.uk

Acceptable Use Policy Recording/broadcasting of
this talk, taking photographs, discussing the
content using email, instant messaging, blogs,
SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to
others is minimised.
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Contents
Case Study

• Introduction
• Case Study The UK Web Focus Blog
• Background
• Launching
• Sustaining
• Learning
• Reasons For Having a Blog
• Beyond Blogs
• Approaches to Providing a Blogging Services
• Issues and Barriers
• Addressing the Barriers
• Sharing Best Practices
• What Next?

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Background
Case Study

• UK Web Focus blog
• Launched on 1 Nov 2006, following comments at
  ILI
• It was rather embarrassing to be singled out as
  the only non-Blogging speaker in a Web 2.0
  session at ILI 2006 conference!
• Chose WordPress (hosted)
• Popular
• In-house technical expertise not needed
• Avoided possible concerns over policies, content
  workflow
• Still happy with it
• Widgets are useful (but would like greater
  flexibility)

Example of sidebar blog widgets (many are
available)
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Launching (1)
Case Study

• The initial posts
• Explained blogs scope, rational and scope
• Ensured there was documented policy
• Got readers on my side

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Launching (2)

• Once Id got some readers I ask them what I
  should do next
• Invite comments
• Respond to comments
• Comments on other peoples blogs
• This is approach which is still being taken
  (1,975 comments on 458 posts)

Thoughts Blogging, in this context, is about
discussion and engagement. Its not about
publishing and workflow.
http//ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2006/11/06/scope-r
ationale-and-policy-for-this-blog/
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Launching (3)

• But how did people find the blog to start with
  (especially as there was a sort launch)
• Web 2.0 gurus (Paul Miller, Phil Bradley, Karen
  Blakeman) used their search skills (automated
  alerts for UKOLN, JISC, etc. keywords)
• They blogged about my blog
• I got traffic from them which was sustained

http//ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2006/11/12/blog-s
tatistics-2006-11-11/
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Monitoring (1)
Case Study

• The Technorati search engine can provide valuable
  information related to your blog
• Who has linked to one of my posts?
• What are they saying?

• This information can be valuable
• If theyve linked to me, I might be interested in
  their blog
• I can respond to their comments

http//www.technorati.com/search/ukwebfocus.wordp
ress.com
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Monitoring (2)

• Technorati can also provide information about
  your blog
• What is its ranking and authority?
• Who has added it as a favourite?

http//www.technorati.com/blogs/ukwebfocus.wordpr
ess.com
Authority number of blogs linking to a your blog
in the last six months Rank how far you are from
the top (the smaller your rank, the closer you
are to the top).
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Monitoring (3)

• Blotter provides an automated graph of your
  Technorati statistics
• Useful tool
• Helps spots unexpected peaks and troughs

• Such objective statistics may be useful
• For spotting trends
• For gaining an understanding of how blogs work
• For making comparison with ones peers
• For getting statistics at little effort for
  reporting purposes
• But there are also many limitations (blogs may
  have focussed audiences, blog aggregation,
  statistics may be flawed, )

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Learning

• What have I learnt
• Writing use of a conversational writing style
  makes it easy to write. Blog provides a valuable
  tool to document share ideas get feedback ?
• Open comments helps to get feedback with a
  barrier to user, but
• Blog comment spam can be a problem, so an
  automated spam filter is needed.
• Maximising impact is important for me, so making
  information available in many places is valuable
  (even if this skews statistics)
• Blended blogging is great blog on topic before
  talk and get suggestions blog afterwards and get
  feedback ?
• Widgets can enrich the blogging environment

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Questions

• Any questions?