Blogging

1.

Deciding what to say

2.

Saying it effectively

3.

Find your audience

4.

Checklist

Deciding what to say

The latest version of Wordpress (the most popular blogging platform in the world) is clocking up around 200,000 downloads per day. Thats a lot of people with something to say. How does a blog become popular then? It finds a niche (its own audience, its area of expertise and influence) and perfects it.

Find your pitch

Music blogs are a great example of how this works. If I started a blog called My favourite music, Id be lucky if my closest friends read it. To get a committed readership would be nothing short of a miracle, given how vague it is and how crowded the existing market is. Start blogging about a specific genre, and tell people about shoegaze, post-punk or even experimental glitch core and youve got a much better chance. Deliver information people cant find elsewhere, such as whats happening on the DIY gig scene or Alt-Folk movement in Leeds, and youve got a captive audience. Apply this to your own situation and youll find ways to deliver something unique.

Some examples

1. Use your position to offer an unrivalled representation of student opinion from across the Leeds campus. How many full time students know what services part-time students want? How many undergraduates understand postgraduates main concerns? The more you can represent views from across the student body the more youll have to say.

2. You influence some of the highest-level decision-making that takes place in the University, and you make many of the big decisions at the Union. Youll also meet with all kinds of local and national representatives, campaigners and decision-makers. Sharing what you learn from all of this will not only give your audience a clear picture of what youre working on, itll give you something to say that they wont hear anywhere else.

Find inspiration

Using another piece of writing as a base for a blog post provides depth. You might find research that supports your views on HE funding, or disagree with an article about students in the local community and decide to explain why. Perhaps youll pick up on a couple of opposing pieces and talk about how this demonstrates that an issue isnt clear cut, and offer your own reasoned response. Its important to strike a balance between being confrontational and unaccountable. Think carefully about your tone to avoid incurring the collective frustration of anyone who disagrees with you, but recognise the importance of being seen to engage with key issues

Here are a few places you can look for inspiration:

Leeds Student
With a readership of 15,000 its a good starting point for seeking out student opinion. News articles will often raise important issues, but youll find no end of direct student opinion in other places too - be sure to check out the letters, leaders (the editorial pieces that give the editors opinion on big issues), as well as the comment and debate sections.

Some examples of issues raised in issue 5, 2009: News: EDL protests in city centre Letters: concern about a Leeds Student feature on the drug mephedrone Leaders: editorial about aviation students opposing anti-airport expansion campaigns.

And some more from another (issue 10, 2010): Comment: Union council meeting a farce, Why we want Anjem Choudary to speak at LUU, Support staff, support the strike, Should we lament the death of ideology in politics

Guardian Leeds
Its only been around for a year but already has a proven ability for picking up on the key local issues that people are interested in. Keep an eye on the blog (better still,

follow them on Twitter) to maintain a good grasp of local issues. The user comments posted on there are great for hearing different views. Weve been picked up by Guardian Leeds regularly, for things like Education First, Leave Leeds Tidy and Union Books closure. The Exec blog has been featured on there too, so its well worth tweeting a link to any posts you think might interest them.

Social media
NUS officers, sabbatical officers from around the country, vocal students follow as many of them as you can to find out issues around the country. Keep an eye on the Unions main Facebook pages, and any others specific to your area. A quick response to comments will often be sufficient, but for bigger issues use your blog and direct people there. This worked well for explaining the Union Books review.

Keep it simple
Blogging should become a natural part of your work; it shouldnt be a burden. Keeping things simple will make this more likely. So dont write 500 words when 100 would do. Theres nothing lazy about writing a few sentences or recording a 30 second video clip about an issue and providing links to good quality sources if you just want to get people thinking. People will be more likely to visit future posts if they know theyll deliver something interesting, whether thats something original or that youve come across elsewhere.

Focus on the outcome

Often the purpose of a post will be really clear. You might be trying to persuade people to come along to an event, to sign a petition or to change their mind on an issue. Other times you might be trying to stimulate discussion, raise awareness or gather opinions. Always think about what you want the outcome to be, and when finished ask yourself whether youre likely to achieve this. If not, consider whether it needs adding to or trimming down to make it clearer, whether you can put more emphasis on the action through the headline or subheading, or whether promoting it in the right way could achieve your goal.

Saying it clearly
When writing for the Web, writers should always keep one analogy in mind: the Internet is a jungle and Web users are information foragers within it. The majority of Internet users only scan websites in their quest to find useful information as quick as possible. The success of website writing depends primarily on conciseness, scan-ability and objectivity.

Keep it concise
Because the majority of Internet users scan websites for the information they are looking for, good website writing must be clear and concise. A good general rule of thumb is that the word count for websites should be half that of traditional writing. You want visitors to be able to locate the gist of each paragraph as quickly as possible. Flowery language and complex sentences have no place on the web.

Divide into chunks

Good web copywriting isnt only about the number of words on a site. Organization is just as important. Break your text into chunks that are easily digestible for readers who are glancing through your page. Divide these chunks up with clear subheadings that tell the reader what the next paragraph is about.

Draw readers in
Whether or not users click on a particular item usually depends on the attention-getting ability of three things: headlines, subheadings and accompanying photos or multimedia. Headlines and subheadings on the homepage are the only chance you have to draw in a visitor, so they should be simple, clear and attractive. Headlines should use verbs that connote action, something that will inform or entertain readers. But they also must reflect what the article is about.

Who, what, where, when, why

Follow the inverted pyramid style of newspaper writing. This means presenting the most important information first, and then expanding on it throughout the rest of the article. In other

words, the who, what, when, where, why need to be answered first. The how should make up the rest.

Hyperlinking
Its important to understand the function of hyperlinking. Besides simple navigation, hyperlinks provide attribution and more information to readers without bogging them down. For example, if you mention a specific fact, but you dont want to explain the details, simply link to another article that explains that fact. Either highlight one specific word, which will clue readers in about what information that link will provide, or write something like for more information see this study, and link on the word study. Another reason to hyperlink is for attribution. If youre quoting another source or lifting an idea from another writer, it is best to provide the reader with that information. Then if the reader is more interested in a particular point you mention, they can find more sources about it. Sites that hyperlink to other well-written and helpful sources become invaluable for readers, and they will return if they know you will provide more sources and information they can use at their own discretion.

Style
Style will make your website stand out while drawing readers in. For most websites, a conversational yet lively voice is the best, helping you achieve simplicity and easy readability. Write in an active rather than passive voice. Active voice will also force you to be concise.

Use multimedia
Finally, remember that the appeal of the Internet is its ability to mix all forms of information and entertainment. Use photos, graphics, and videos to grab readers attentions. You dont want to distract the reader by relying on these things too heavily, but make sure you are always thinking about how to best illustrate your text with multimedia.

Find your audience

Knowing who youre talking to is probably the first rule of communications, but what if theyre a diverse body of 33 000 people? You might wonder how you could even get a feel for who they are.

Get to know them

It makes sense talking to such a varied audience to aim somewhere in the middle, while at the same time making sure youre being inclusive enough to avoid alienating any group. Some issues will interest only a minority, others will be more universal, but you will have a target audience. Think about what that audience has in common. Theyre all students at a good university for a start, so pitch the intelligence up rather than down. Theyre also likely to be bombarded with communications throughout their every waking hour theres another thing in common. Think about how your message is going to reach them and how it can stand out. Are you saying something thats going to interest them? Something new? One of the worst things you can do is patronise your audience, or bore them by telling them something theyve heard a dozen times before.

Young and old

Age is often a big factor in choosing how to speak to people, so heres a snapshot of our members ages (this was taken over summer, so in September when weve got a fresh cohort this would all be shifted down by one year). Its a pretty broad age range, but theres a really strong emphasis right across 18-26. Avoid the temptation to pitch things only at the younger end, around 18-21.

Fig 1. Frequency area graph showing ages of all students, activity group members and voters

Other demographics
Nationality Study level Attendance Home Undergraduate Full time 76% 76% 87% International Postgraduate Part-time 24% 24% 13%

Fig 2. A quick breakdown of just a few demographic measures.

This information is mostly useful when considering what to say, not how to say it. But it can still be useful for guiding the language we use if youve got an audience with a variety of first languages are puns going to be easily understood?

Say it right
If youre speaking on behalf of the Union, talk in the Unions voice. Using personal pronouns is a friendly way to talk to people, so try saying we, rather than LUU, and you rather than students. Theres a danger that students are so heavily stereotyped that they might not always identify with the label. Think about how students refer to us - theyre much more likely to say the Union than LUU, theyll speak about the Exec rather than Student Executive and theyll talk about Freshers Week not Intro Week. Talking in the same way as your audience will make it easier for them to connect with you, and easier for them to understand what youre communicating.

Checklist
1. Get the idea
What issue have you heard about recently that was on your mind for the rest of the day? What have you learned recently from engaging with other people? What are students signing a petition or writing to the student newspaper about?

2. Write it
Do you know who the audience is for this issue? Is there a specific outcome you want to achieve?

3. Finish it
Is the headline interesting but clear? Does the opening set out the who, what, why, where and when? Have you included links that back up what youre saying or give the reader more to think about?

4. Promote it
Post it on Twitter Tweet it at other sabbatical officers etc. Is it something that would interest local press? Guardian Leeds or YP?