Presentation to the San Diego Urban League Youth Academy on Citizen Journalism, Blogging and Social Networking.

What is a Blog?

What makes a great blog?

1.    Author's true voice, honesty, passion and personality shines through the posts
2.    The blog is updated frequently with well-written, quality, compelling and interesting content
3.    Author is transparent about who is writing the blog and what it's about
4.    The blog author invites a conversation - a blog was not intended to be a monologue
5.    Posts are easy to read and convey clarity, brevity - and for me - either inform, educate, or entertain
6.    The blog has a clear purpose and topic (s) and the author delivers content that keeps you coming back for more!

Who is blogging?

Short answer - millions of people - from everyday people to athletes, entertainers, politicians, businesses

Some examples of great blogs:

How do you find blogs?

http://technorati.com/

http://blogsearch.google.com/

Why blog?

• To express yourself
• Share your passion, hobby, interests
• Educate, inspire, motivate, inform
• Future job/career opportunities
• Develop your blog voice
• Sharpen your creativity, writing and communication skills
• Make a difference

Next action steps?

• Who is interested?
• 1parkplace will provide a multi-author blog for the group project
• Everyone gets their own user name and profile to contribute to the blog
• Preparation for next session:
  • Research blogs and discover what you like and don't like - make a list
  • Decide what is the purpose of the blog?
  • Who is your audience?
  • What is the Title and Subtitle or Tagline?
  • Think about Categories  for the blog
  • Write 1-2 paragraphs about you *Who are you?  what do you like to do?  Your interests?  Waht are you passionate about?"
  • Photo of you.  Don't worry if you don't have one - we will take one!
  • Everyone writes one blog post

Learn to Blog Topics:

• Anatomy of a Blog
• How to write and post to a blog
• Researching ideas for posts -  keyword research tools
• Types of posts and Adding hyperlinks 
• How to add video, files and audio to a post
• Researching keywords and search engline optimization
• Legal issues, ethics and best practices