How to get started blogging

It probably won't surprise you that I'm a huge fan of blogging. It can be a great tool to share knowledge, opinions and feelings and if you're blogging about work or an area of expertise, it can set you apart in your chosen career. It gives future employers or colleagues a place to go to get to know what you think about things. Even if no-one ever reads it, it can give you a space to clarify your thoughts and the opportunity to think things through.
I've been blogging since 2009 and there's a few tips I've picked up along the way:

• Think about why you want to blog. Is it to share best practice? It is to learn more about yourself? Is it to try and get you a (better) job? It might be loads of reasons but it does help to keep those in your mind. 
• Don't agonise over your URL - for most people I'd recommend using a URL with their name in it because then it will be relevant no matter what the blog morphs into, but really the URL doesn't matter. Most people who read your blog will come to it from links you've shared, links on other people's blogs or searches. Very few people will actually type the URL into the browser. You also don't necessarily have to buy a domain as whichever blogging platform you decide to use will give you one for me. I've muddled along with a free one just fine even if it is a little on the long side. You can always export it later if you have a change of heart.
• Don't spend hours fiddling about with the design. It needs to be clear to read first and foremost: content is king. If it can look great too with a custom-designed template then go ahead but I'd say that most visitors will ignore the design and focus on what you've posted instead. (Having said that, I love the thoughtful, creative and clean designs of Comms2Point0 and Supercool.)
• Don't worry about which blogging platform to use. There are tonnes out there but probably the best known are blogger and wordpress. Blogger (the one I use and owned by Google) used to be a bit crap and rarely had updates but it has got better of late. I've done a screenshot of the dashboard above. You can see it looks very similar to word so it's dead easy to use.
• Spend time thinking about what you want to share. The way my brain works best is this: I set it a problem and then I leave it to simmer, then when inspiration comes I scribble it down. For me this works best when I'm trying to think of ideas for new blog posts. If I was to sit down and think ok, now I must develop some content, I would have a total blank. Better to watch TV, read some news or have a shower and let the neural pathways do the hard work for you. As a journalist, I had to keep a daily news list or schedule - it's a good idea to keep a running list of blog posts you want to write. (I have to confess though, that although I do this I rarely refer back to it, preferring to write as and when the urge strikes me.)
• Think about how often you're going to post. Generally, the more prolific people are the more traffic they'll get. Two or three posts a week (or even a day) would be fantastic but is that realistic for you? I tend to post two to three times a month. When work is busy, I'm less frequent because there are only so many hours in the day. Don't beat yourself up if you haven't posted for a while.
• Strictly speaking a blog is the thing you post on, a post is the content. (In press terms, a blog is the newspaper, a post is the article.) Some people are pedantic about this and disparage those who say something like 'here's a new blog I've written'. My advice is ignore the pedants. 
• Read other people's blogs and be generous with links from your blog to their's. Most blogging platforms have a plug in or section in the template that allows you to have a blog roll or blog list on your site. It's basically just a list of blog links.
• Time when you post. If you want as many people as possible to read it, post early in the day (but not so early that everyone is asleep).
• Allow comments. Blogging isn't a one way broadcast. It's about sharing your thoughts and then listening to what people say back. There's nothing more annoying than carefully crafting a comment on someone's post, pressing submit and then having to wait hours for it to be moderated. I rarely get spam comments but if I do I just delete them.
• Respond to comments. If people have taken the time to read your post and make a comment, even if you don't agree, it's respectful to show them you've read it and reply.
• Be diligent about labelling and tagging. In a few years when you're trying to find something you once wrote you'll be glad.
• Post in haste, repent at leisure. As with all social media, think before you post. 
• Join twitter - it's the best way to share links to your blog. 
• Enjoy it. Blogging should be pleasurable - a great way to get your feelings out there and hear what other people think back. Good luck!

What are your tips for starting blogging?

Why do people share their lives online?

Today I was chatting about social media at work and someone asked me why people would share the details of their lives online. They couldn't understand why people wouldn't just call a friend and tell them or wait til they saw one of their mates or family. It made me think about it.
I share quite a lot online - I post my holiday photos on facebook, I tweet about everything and anything and I blog my innermost thoughts here. Generally when I'm 'life-leaking', I share the stuff I'm happy about; when something great has happened or something I'm proud of. When I'm down in the dumps I tend to say quieter and be more introverted.
When I started on Twitter, I was very private - I didn't really share anything about myself and what I did share was very stifled. From following other people, I realised that people talk back to you and show an interest in you when you're being genuine and honest and sometimes that might mean sharing bits of your life.

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I posed the question 'why do people share their lives on line?' to Twitter. Some people responded that people do it for ego, vanity or exhibitionism but I think that they were mostly meaning when people over-share. Some people share emotional breakdowns or intimate feelings that can make other people feel uncomfortable but I would say the people who over-share are in the minority.
Most people who use social media do share details of their lives though - like tweeting photos of cakes they've baked, sharing photos of a night out, posting videos of their child's first steps, when they're feeling shattered or ill, giving their opinion on a TV show or commenting on a football game.
Admittedly, people share what they want to share and may be (consciously or not) seeking to create a particular impression but all these little gems are insights into people's personalities and worlds.  These are not the sort of things you'd call somebody to say and you certainly wouldn't call hundreds of people to tell them the way you can so quickly with social media. By knowing these things though, you feel closer to people sharing and probably - though not always - warmer towards them.
Some of the reasons why people share their lives online that were suggested by my Twitter friends were:

• that people gain comfort from sharing problems;
• that people are isolated in modern society and social media gives a sense of community and belonging; 
• carving their name in the tree (I like this one @paulcoxon81!)
• it's easy and cathartic to share on line;
• people have a yearning to be open and social media bends towards honesty.

It was also pointed out that some people don't realise how much their sharing (they've made a mistake with their privacy settings) or some people forget that they're talking to the whole world and not just their friends.

My view is that it comes down to the natural human instinct to want to communicate with other people. People want a witness to their lives; to feel valued and that somebody cares about them. I think the fact that social media allows that makes the world a better, and smaller, place.

Communicating welfare reform

Whether you agree or disagree with welfare reform, if your job is to communicate it to tenants you have a tricky task in hand.
There are so many changes and they will affect everyone differently depending on their personal circumstances, so how do you communicate them?
At Wolverhampton Homes, we've decided to communicate early, often and as simply as possible, with a call to action that we want to discuss our customers' options with them face-to-face.
We've already had a series of Get Togethers, which introduced the topic; shared information on our website, facebook and twitter; had articles in our newsletter for the past 18 months and worked with our local media to raise awareness.
But it's not enough to just raise awareness. We want tenants to have enough information to be able to make decisions that will give them the best possible future.
Now we're planning the next phase of our communications. We have consulted tenants about what they want from us and from our communications. They've requested face-to-face meetings as far as possible because they know that everyone will be affected differently and that people will be thinking 'ok, but what does it mean for me?'. They want a special version of our newsletter, entirely dedicated to welfare reform, so we're working on that now. They also think everyone should be written to inviting them to contact us, including frequently asked questions.
The other thing they said to us was to make the figures real, giving pound and pence numbers, rather than percentages. Tenants added that bringing the topic to life with real examples was important - such as 'if you're a couple with two teenage sons aged 13 and 15, the Government considers you to be under-occupying', so people can work out if it affects them.
We feel that the term welfare reform can be a bit jargon-y in isolation. 'Changes to benefits' would probably mean more to the man in the street but as welfare reform becomes more widely reported in the media, the term is becoming better known.
All our staff and partners will be briefed so they're well placed to answer questions.
To give tenants choices about how they receive the information, we're also going to produce videos (with transcriptions) and visually represent the changes in our leaflets, using pictures of homes and people who might be affected.
The other thing that we're keen to make clear is that this is a Government decision. It is important tenants understand who has made these changes.
I think it's also important to share best practice and see what other organisations are doing. Through the National Federation of ALMOs, I'm fortunate to belong to a group where other comms officers happily share their learning and how they're tackling issues.
Communicating welfare reform will likely be the biggest challenge that social housing communications practitioners have ever faced so we need to listen to tenants, be creative in our approaches and learn from each other.