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CEHD News Blog Best Practices

These guidelines are for content strategists, faculty, and staff. They cover what kind of content should be featured in department and center blog posts and how to use the blog tool most effectively.

HOW DO YOU DETERMINE YOUR AUDIENCE?

It’s easy to ignore an email forwarded to someone’s entire contact list; in that case, the reader feels anonymous. However, it’s almost impossible to skip over a personally addressed handwritten letter because it’s especially written for you. The more you can craft content in such a way to evoke a sense in your reader that you are speaking directly to him or her, the more engaged your readers will be.

The way to create this effect is to write content to a very specific audience, anticipating the kind of content that will interest them. Imagine the ideal reader you would want to attract, and write to that person.

Consider these external audiences:

  • Prospective students and their families
  • Educators and human service professionals
  • Community or business partners
  • Potential donors or contributors
  • Media or opinion leaders

There are two ways of dealing with multiple audiences. One is to prioritize the most important audience you have. This strategy will help your blog post achieve a specific goal. The other strategy is to create a “persona” to write to that spans more than one audience category. Based on the audiences above, we could imagine a prospective student who tells his or her parents everything and encourages them to be involved in either a partnership or in a support capacity, or we could imagine a community leader who has teenage children and who is interested in going back for a graduate degree. In the beginning of a more targeted blog strategy, we recommend focusing on one audience, building regular readership, and then slowly incorporating content for a second and third audience.

Consider what you want the outcomes of your blog post to be:
What do you want someone reading your blog to think or feel, and what do you want them to do?
What content would make them think or feel that way? What content would trigger an action?
How do you prioritize your audiences so that blog posts are the most effective they can be?

Knowing the answers to these questions ahead of time can help you shape your content in such a way that it encourages your readers to take the steps you want them to take. These answers could also help you determine if the content you’re considering serves a purpose for your readers.

CURATING YOUR BLOG

One of the most important things you can do to build and maintain a loyal readership is curate your readers’ experiences. The best news blog content lives at the intersection of organizational goals and user needs. Readers look for content that means something to them. That means we should be selective regarding the content we choose to post. Lucky for us, just because content isn’t appropriate for the news blog doesn’t mean that we can’t post it elsewhere:

  • Is your content about an upcoming event? Unless there’s a story or celebratory milestone attached, this content should go on the events calendar.
  • Is your content appropriate for colleagues, but not necessarily relevant to external audiences? If yes, then it’s probably right for the Burton Brief.
  • Is your content a short announcement, interesting fact, or eye-catching photo? If yes, then it likely belongs on social media. Personal (not professional) accomplishments are rarely appropriate for the news blog, but they can liven up and humanize a department’s social media presence. Use social media to drive audiences to your news blog posts.

What you should post on the news blog

  • News and feature stories about students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community partners
  • Significant research
  • Major department or college activities
  • Awards and honors
  • Building openings and dedication ceremonies.
  • Notable national and world speakers
  • Individual alumni achievements
  • Memorial announcements

What you should not post on the news blog

  • Lectures and talks. As a general rule, lectures should be posted on the events calendar.
  • Specific class offerings. Summer offerings, continuing education, registration reminders, etc.
  • Office moves.
  • New website launch/releases, unless part of a major college activity.
  • Calls for entry/or participation.
  • Stories missing basic information (who, what, when, where, why).

Blog Components

EXTERNAL [COLLEGE] TITLE
All posts should have a title for an external audience. This title attracts external readers into the story and gives the college communications office the opportunity to promote your department’s or center’s news broadly.

Tips: Be descriptive, clear, and to the point. Use an active verb. Aim to keep your titles as concise as possible.

INTERNAL [DEPARTMENT] TITLE
This is the title for your department’s or center’s internal audiences. It is where you put the title that you want an internal audience to see.

TEASER
If the title tells your audience what the article will be about, the teaser should tell your audience why the article matters. You can use this space to highlight a unique point, quickly differentiate this post from similar blog posts, state a value proposition, or add a definition to a necessary but hard-to-understand title (unfortunately, they happen sometimes).

Tips: Ask yourself questions like:

  • Does this teaser make me want to read the blog post more or less?
  • Does this teaser clarify or hook me in?
  • How would the title and teaser look on an iPhone? (If the answer is “too wordy,” cut it down.)

BODY
Here’s where the story goes! Make it a compelling story. First, be sure you have all the facts: who, what, when, where, why, and how; the “why” and the “how” usually make the story compelling.

Sometimes, our stories are potentially boring by their very nature (someone won an award; someone gave a talk at a conference; someone published something … you get the picture). Here are some ways to spice up those stories:

  • Awards and honors – why did the student or faculty member win it? For what research or action?
  • Talks and presentations – what was the presentation or talk about? Is there anything the reader can apply to his or her life or work (real-life applications and insights are awesome).
  • Publications – what is the publication about? Is there anything the reader can apply to his or her life or work?
  • Quotes – Include a quote from a student or a faculty member about why this is important. Statements from people make the story more personal and interesting.

Typically a blog post should be at least 200 words and probably not a lot more than 800. If it’s longer than 800 words, you might have too many ideas in one post. If that’s the case, break the post up into pieces. You should also break up paragraphs often so readers can identify topic sentences and scan for specific content. Provide inline links to support and clarify your post. Add photos, graphics, or videos whenever possible.

Good blog content is:

  • Readily understandable. No jargon, buzzwords, or unexplained acronyms, please. If you need to use an acronym or abbreviation, spell it out in the beginning.
  • Concise
  • Easy to scan
  • Easy to share
  • Purposeful
  • Written in active voice as much as possible.

Making your blogs easy to share
When people share your blog posts with others, magical things happen! You get more post views that could lead to more site visits. Brand recognition and reputations go up. You might even get more prospective students checking out your programs. If your blog posts are shared on a regular basis, you develop influence and a regular readership. So, what would inspire someone to share a blog post you wrote?

  • Academic research translated into real life application and insights. People love expert advice.
  • Moving human-interest stories
  • Partnerships and collaborations. Collaborators and partners will share the story with their networks.

Call to action.
At the end of each blog post, a reader has to decide what to do next. They could read the next post, look for something else to read or do, get back to work, etc. At the end of the blog post, we have an opportunity to suggest that next activity. We can drive them deeper into our sites and direct them to related content they might find interesting.

Each post should end with a call to action. Some examples might be:

  • To learn more about [faculty member]’s research, please visit her profile.
  • To read more student stories, please visit our student profiles section.
  • To learn more about the Ph.D. program in __________, please visit our prospective students page.

KEYWORDS

Keywords are words and phrases that make your web content (including blog posts) easy to find. It’s a tool you can use when talking about topics that hold a special relevance for very specific audiences.

HOW TO GET YOUR STORY ELEVATED

What is likely to be chosen for the CEHD homepage?
Compelling stories about:

  • Research, teaching, or partnerships with international, national, state, or local community impact.
  • International, national, state, or major University honors for faculty, staff, alumni, or students.
  • New books or journal articles with broad appeal or significant findings.
  • International, national, or significant local media coverage of CEHD research or expertise.
  • New international or national rankings.
  • Stories that connect to CEHD strategic priorities or initiatives.

What is likely to be chosen for the SKY News page?
Compelling stories that:

  • Provide a news mix from all departments and centers.
  • Cover news about faculty, staff, alumni, and students.
  • May be particularly interesting to an internal (CEHD audience).
  • Content strategists request to have posted.

What is likely to be chosen for the Burton Brief?
Announcements that:

  • Provide a news mix from all departments and centers
  • Cover news about faculty and staff
  • Acknowledge a recent presentation, publication, promotion to an editorial board, etc.
  • Acknowledge a prestigious award or grant
  • Offer professional opportunities for staff and faculty

HOW CAN FACULTY, STAFF, CONTENT STRATEGISTS, AND COMMUNICATIONS WORK TOGETHER?

  • Be attentive and collaborative. Include content strategists and communications staff on emails about relevant content for the blog. Be prepared and available to answer questions or provide more information.
  • Don’t allow for surprises. When a blog story you’re working on includes faculty or students from other departments, let other department content strategists know ahead of time so they can plan for it.