I was just about to write a post about how to plan and write a successful blog for class, when I realized… it’s already in the syllabus!

I’m pasting below the relevant part from the syllabus, in an attempt to direct your attention to it.

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“…

Each student will write a personal blog (readable by only class members, or open – your choice). The blog will be professional, which means you’ll write about work (and a bit of work-related fun), not your personal life, food and movie reviews (unless they’re relevant to your work).

Your blog will have 2 categories of posts:

1. Required topic blog posts:

• notes on readings – YOUR takeaways – What are the 3-5 points that are important to YOU? What did YOU take away from the reading? What did it mean to YOU? How is it relevant to YOU? What questions & critiques do you have?
• notes on social media tools – identify, write about, and review social media tools you come across.

2. Elective topic blog posts:

• Ideas, thoughts, opinions, commentary on anything you see/read/hear that is or can be related to class and/or your work. For example, you may view the videos I posted on the Ning network, and write your thoughts about them. Or you can post your thoughts/opinions about something that was discussed in class, something that happened, etc. You can post videos, photos, etc.
• Some mix of personal or humorous posts ad spice to your blog and show your humanity and complexity. Just keep it work-appropriate
• Questions, fears, unfinished ideas – blogs are most interesting when they document your thinking process rather than when they show a finished, polished “final paper.”

Keep the writing simple, concise, clear, and grammatically correct. Remember, this is (part of) your online resume.

…”

I’ll be honest with you, I used to think that making students blog for a grade is a bad idea. I mean, making them put themselves out there?!

But then I realized that blogging is a necessity – and there’s no other way to learn it. Just like I teach news releases, I have to teach blogging. Just like students have to write news releases, they need to blog, too.

Some students might find out that they hate news releases. Others might find out they hate blogging. I say, it’s better to find out earlier rather than later, so they can adjust their career paths and expectations.

The semester’s coming to an end, and it all of a sudden dawned on me that blogging has taught my students some very important lessons, which will be useful even if they don’t choose to go into PR:

• articulating thoughts and opinions
• taking responsibility for thoughts and opinions by making them public
• attributing ideas through linking
• networking online, building relationships with like-minded people through commenting & linking

If you have tried blogging, can you tell me in the comments:

What has blogging taught you?

Here are a few ideas for things you could blog about, in no particular order:

• blog about blogging – how is it going for you? What’s easy, what’s hard? What have you learned, what do you still wish to learn?
• blog about a blog or blog post that you find good/useful/interesting – or the opposite. Explain your opinion and provide arguments
• blog about any resources useful to people learning about PR
• blog about a social media tool – i.e. your thoughts on twitter, digg, pandora, delicious, etc. – you can write from a personal perspective or think about how these tools can be used in PR
• blog about ideas & theories that you hear in class that stand out to you. Why do they stand out? Why are they interesting, how can they be applied to PR, human communication, life?
• blog about your experiences on PROpenMic
  
• blog about people in the blogosphere and/or PR industry that you admire and think you can learn from
• go out of your way, interview someone and post the interview on the blog. Interview another student, a professor, your boss at your internship, a PR blogger, etc (just not me, you need exposure beyond me)
• blog about blogs you like to read, even if they’re not related to PR. See this nice example
  
• give advice to students like you, to younger students, to people seeking internships, to people interning for the first time, to students who are just beginning to blog/twitter/network on PROpenMic
• give advice to yourself – things you want to remember for the future, or things you would tell yourself if you were at the beginning of the semester
• start making a list of PRinciples – what are the PRinciples you learned in this class?

These links complement the lecture on Engaging the Blogosphere:

• Dell Hell blog post by Jeff Jarvis
• Direct2Dell, Dell’s online “home” – please take a look at their different blogs and social media efforts, including several twitter accounts
• A list of the people on the Dell social media team. I’ve met Richard and Lionel at conferences, great people. Check them out on twitter!
• How NOT to respond to blog posts – see the 2 canned, unrelated comments someone from Maharishi University of Management posted on my PR Connections post. (I wonder if they’ll post some here, too?) [update: see note at the bottom]
• Blogger engagement exercises on the Edelman Authenticities blog – post a response to that post on your blog. How would you engage these bloggers?
• The book Naked Conversations on amazon.com – Robert Scoble is a very famous tech blogger, Shel Israel (blog, twitter) is a PR person

You have two blogging exercises (suggested, not mandatory – but highly recommended):

1. How would you engage the bloggers in the Edelman Autheniticities cases?
2. How would you advise a small, local yoga studio, an animal shelter, a small pizza restaurant, and/or a bathroom decor store to blog? Can you think of a niche and an angle? What topics would you recommend they write about? How could they engage their publics online?

[update Oct. 30]: This is the message I got last night in response to a Google Alert that someone at the Maharishi University of Management was following:

“Hello Dr. V,

I agree with your observation about the canned comments. The person who sent those isn’t with MUM… he’s an outside supporter who acted on his own.

It appears he needs to take one of your PR courses… so he can learn that his approach is actually counter-productive!

Regards,

Ron Barnett
Dean of Admissions
Maharishi University of Management”

What do you think? Is that a good response to a blog post? What would you advise Maharishi University of Management to do in this situation?

Anybody who’s somebody and/or would like to be somebody or just IS in PR blogs. There are lots of PR blogs out there. How do you find them and choose what to READ?

Here are some starting points:

• This post lists the finalists in the PR Week blog competition. These are some of the most poular & appreciated PR blogs. All of them worth reading.
• When you come across a blog you like, check out the blogroll – it’ll lead you to other blogs you might enjoy reading. For example, see the blogroll on PR Connections
• If you want more, see this comprehensive list of PR blogs, maintained by Constantin Basturea

Reading is not enough. You should also RESPOND, in comments or your own blog posts.

Here are some excellent tips on how to comment and how to invite comments on your posts, from UGA PR professor Karen Russell.

You’re reading blogs and responding, but how do you build your own online reputation? By WRITING your own blog. How? Chris Brogan wrote a number of excellent tips for better blogging, collected here. I also highly recommend the book Naked Conversations – it will teach you a lot about good blogging.

WHY? Besides the reasons mentioned in class, see:

• this story of someone getting a job because he read a blog
• this story of how listening and responding to a podcast helped this person connect with his employer, Joseph Jaffe of crayon, author of Join the Conversation.

The final tutorial for today allows you to witness the steps I go through as I create a new blog post. In this tutorial I talk you through each step as I actually do it, so you can see exactly what I click, how I insert links, and how easy it is to create blog posts!