Guest blogger Abbas Jaffer is a fellow at the Buxton Initiative, a Case Foundation partner organization.
This post is the first in a new series about the lingo of web tools: what they are, and how to use them. Each of these has its own particular origin, and each can help you do more for the greater good. I start with the blog; an essential tool for today’s advocacy.
Ah, the blog. On the internet of today, blogs are used far and wide, and they cover pretty much every topic under the sun. What is a blog though, and how did it start? Blog is short for weblog, meaning a collection of information: in the late 1990s it was just pictures and text, and now it’s a whole lot more including polls, video and all manner of other media. The information is published as short entries called blog posts, which are usually presented in reverse chronological order and offer space for readers to participate by adding comments. The idea began as individuals keeping online diaries: a way for them to share their thoughts publicly.
These early bloggers were the pioneers who laid the groundwork for the dizzying array of blog types we have today. There are two common ways blogs are used:
- Organization blogs - where supporters are updated on what’s new and provide opportunities to interact (PlayPumps uses a blog to offer news updates on their work)
- Personal blogs - individuals offer expertise or insight on any topic you can imagine (Seth Godin’s marketing wisdom is updated at least once a day)
It gets even wilder in that you can even use a blogging service to build an entire website, with contact forms, social networks and static as well as updating information. Wikipedia has a list of some different types of blogs, and different types of blog posts are explained over at Problogger.
All these possibilities are exciting, but how do you use a blog to further your good work? A blog can be part of a fundraising campaign. You can use the blog to keep your supporters updated on what you’ve been up to (like the City Year crew in DC). A blog can also be a place to have a conversation about what kinds of actions would be useful to the community in the future (like Social Edge).
Getting started doesn’t need to be painful or costly. With free blogging services like Blogger and Wordpress, all you have to do is sign-up and in a few minutes you’ll be ready to publish your first post. Having a good blog is one tool for harnessing the web for good, but there are many others, such as Twitter, which I’ll be writing about in my next post.
There are a wealth of resources on blogs. Here are some I recommend:
- Techsoup offers some great tips about blogging.
- 43 Folders' post, "What Makes for a Good Blog?"
- Britt Bravo outlines some of the best ways to leverage blogging to achieve your goals for good (with examples).
- Chris Brogan's post, "40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content"
- DigiActive is one of my favorite ways to see what other change agents have been using blogs for, and other web tools for that matter.
- Stepcase Lifehack's post, "101 Steps to Becoming a Better Blogger"
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