How to set up a blog and start a Twitter account. Created for a talk for school alumni staff. Features editorial calendars, type of blogs, blog ideas, what Twitter is, scheduling tools, and analytics tools.

1. BLOGGING,
MICROBLOGGING AND
TWITTER: A ROUGH
GUIDE
PRESENTED BY JO PETTY, FREELANCE COPYWRITER
jopetty.co.uk
@joapet
Resourcesandusefulwebsites

2. WHAT IS A BLOG?
A place to post news, articles and other interesting
information
Can take many different forms, covering different
sectors
A resource that informs, entertains and educates

3. WHAT IS
MICROBLOGGING?
Originated as a "tumbleblog" - a blog page which
consists of a stream of links and quotes
Most common form of microblogging is through
sites like and
A quick and easy way to get across information
Twitter Tumblr

4. SO WHY IS BLOGGING
IMPORTANT?
It's an easy way to get information to people who
visit your site
You can attract new visitors through blogging
Using microblogging platforms helps expose you to
new social groups and expands your network

5. BEFORE YOU START
Establish your target audience
Decide on a tone of voice
Who will manage your blog?

6. GETTING YOUR BLOG SET
UP
Assess your current technical situation
Consider the available blogging platforms
Establish what you need from your content
management system

7. TYPES OF BLOG POST
News

8. TYPES OF BLOG POST
Interviews

9. TYPES OF BLOG POST
Opinion

10. TYPES OF BLOG POST
Promotional

11. TYPES OF BLOG POST
Seasonal

12. TYPES OF BLOG POST
Evergreen content

13. IDEAS FOR BLOG POSTS
An interview with a member of staff
Invites to events
Reuse old content
Updates on the school
Remember the good old days?
General news on the sector
Guest authors

14. REMEMBER...
All the content you post should be unique (i.e not
found anywhere else online)
One of the easiest ways to update your blog is to
plan ahead

15. EDITORIAL CALENDARS

16. EDITORIAL CALENDARS
A way to track your blogs and plan ahead
Keep track of things via a calendar or spreadsheet
Decide on how often you want to post
Plan out posts around important events
Write your blogs in advance

17. POSTING CONTENT
Use a catchy title
Break up the copy with headers if it's particularly
long
An average blog post is 250-500 words long
Include images, but be careful of copyright

18. Learn how to include videos and embed content
Spell check!

19. PROMOTING YOUR BLOG
Newsletters
Staff engagement
Social media

20. TWITTER: THE BASICS
A tweet consists of 140 characters
Other users can be mentioned by using @ followed
by their username
Can group together topics of interest eg. #teaching
or events eg. #Eurovision

21. WHAT LOOKS
LIKE
TWITTER

22. HOW TO GET SET UP ON
TWITTER
Follow other users
Pay attention to online trends and hashtags
Tweet when you post a blog - can upload images
Use a link shortener like to give you more
characters
Retweet content your target audience will enjoy
Bitly

23. WHEN TO POST
Post regularly (more than once a day!)
Use scheduling tools
Remember to be responsive

24. MEASURING YOUR
SUCCESS
Wordpress stats
Google Analytics
Bit.ly
Twitter Counter

25. OTHER SOCIAL
ACCOUNTS: PINTEREST
Allows you to "pin" images from across the web
onto boards
Particularly useful if you have a lot of visual content

26. OTHER SOCIAL
ACCOUNTS: INSTAGRAM
An app which you take photos through and they
automatically get uploaded online
Useful if you're running an event
Uses hashtags and @ mentions

27. KEY LEARNINGS
Setting up a blog is easier than you think.
Maintaining it requires planning
Content is all around you
Twitter is easy to integrate into your blogging
practices

28. THAT'S IT!
JOPETTY.CO.UK
@JOAPET

29. RESOURCES
Blogging platforms
| |wordpress.org tumblr.com blogger.com
Event planning
|eventbrite.co.uk meetup.com
Image resources
|creativecommons.org commons.wikimedia.org
Social media
| |twitter.com pinterest.com instagram.com
Scheduling tools
|tweetdeck.com hootsuite.com
Measuring tools
| |google.com/analytics bitly.com
twittercounter.com