Karen du Toit
Blogs for Librarians
LIASA Webinar 25 Nov 2015
(part of the “Social Media for Librarians” -series of webinars)

Blogger
- SABC Media Libraries
- Karen’s 23 Mobile Things
- MomAgain@40
- About.Me

What is a Blog?
Web-log
(online)
Reverse
chronology
Interactive
Personal
Informal
Hyperlinks

Why Blog?
 http://youtu.be/livzJTIWlmYSeth Godin and Tom Peters on
Blogging

Why blog for librarians?
 Increase productivity
 Reach out to your users
 Promote services
 Train users (young & old)
 Pass on social media skills
 Become part of global discussions

How to start a blog?
Planning – WWWWH?
Branding(The Library), niche, audience
Title
Theme

Why Blogger?
 Free
 User-friendly
 Comprehensive widgets
 Zero downtime
 Integration with Google products: Google+, Analytics, etc
 Google managed security
 Adding a custom domain very easy/cheap
 Blogger sites added to Google search within 24 hours
 Great starting platform to learn the ropes
 Only need a Gmail password to start

Blogger
 www.blogger.com

Let’s play BLOG!

Blogger.com
- Blog address & user
name fixed > NB!
- Google password
strong
- Title & address same
(SEO)
- Create blog in 3 steps!

Template

Settings

Before we begin…
Question marks in Blogger settings
 Click them if unsure

Settings: Basic (1)

Settings: Basic (2)

Settings: Posts and Comments
 Settings: Posts

Settings: Posts and Comments
 Comments

Settings: Mobile and Email

Settings: Language and
formatting

Settings: Search preferences

Settings Other

Layout

Layout: Add a Gadget

Gadgets

Gadgets 2

Gadgets 3

Online etiquette
 Rule of thumb! Don’t post anything you don’t want your
mother to see.
 Stay neutral
 Use “They” and third person when reporting about anything
in the library
 Grammar and punctuation rules!
 Tone down your language
 Respect others and their opinions
 Brevity the best! (300-500 word per blog post!)

New post
Text here
Tex

Multi-media
Insert via post
Or via code
Reminder!!
Only use your own, free or Creative Commons multi-media!

Free stock photos/images
 http://iStockPhoto.com
 http://Seedresources.com
 Flickr Creative Commons:
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons
 http://www.sxc.hu
 http://rgbstock.com

CC Licence
The creator of any content decides how they want to share
stipulating their own conditions
 http://www.commoncraft.com/video/copyright-and-creative-
commons (great video for understanding CC license easily!)
 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/creative-commons-use/
 https://creativecommons.org/

Add gadget on sidebar Add code into blog post
Embed code
 Copy and paste
 Use for any embed code
 Copy and paste after
changed blog to HTML
Ability to switch between
normal & code

Photo with caption

Insert links (hyperlinks)

Make your blog interactive

Interaction
 Comments
 Share buttons
 Social media buttons (to follow you)
 RSS feeds
 Email updates
 Supply contact details on sidebar or “About”

Sharing
 Share each blog post on all social media sites, especially
Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn (avoid automatic
updates)
 Share more than once to allow for different time zones
 Write guests posts for topic aligned sites
 Accept guests posts with topic aligned content and links
 Comment on topic aligned blogs

Share buttons

More sharing
 Enable readers of blog to share
your content
 Enable readers of blog to follow
you
 1. Add gadget from More
gadgets in right navigation bar
 2. Add Social Media buttons
(Search for free Social Media
buttons)
Add gadget > “Image”
link to Twitter & Facebook &

Labels in Blogger
 Tabs = Labels  Work on own thesaurus of
labels – stick to it!
 Labels in Blog postAdd gadget: Labels

SEO
(Search Engine Optimization)
 Increase traffic with SEO (Blogger Help)

Examples of blogs
 The Daring Librarian (Gwyneth Jones)
 New York Public Library blogs
 Jan Holmquist / Worldwide thoughts of a Danish librarian
 International Librarians Network
 The Archival Platform

Resources
 How to start a blog on Blogger – Wikihow
 Blogging tips on Pinterest by Karen du Toit- Blogging
 Blogger Help Center
 How the New York Public Library is using blogs

Questions?