Blogging Tips

EnhanceTV’s blogs can be submitted by anyone and are moderated by our staff. If you're from the film industry, or new to blogging, here are some tips gathered from established bloggers to help you along – please feel free to comment, submit some of your own, or suggest other bloggers who have handy tips.

Note for Filmmakers: please make your content relevant , interesting and useful to educators. They are a special audience, and can already read about your program and broadcast details in mass media and the EnhanceTV newsletters. Blogs are the place to give them more insight into your program from and educational point of view. How can you help them teach with your program in class? Do you have lesson plans, behind the scenes footage, background material that is not already available to the general public through your mass advertising? Are there interesting facts, interviews, study guides associated with your program? EnhanceTV Community connect you to educators, but you must share! Blogs that don't "share" won't feature on the main page. We know this might sound blunt, but the whole concept of a Community won't work otherwise.

1. It's not a media release
Whilst many blogs pass on news, they are usually written in the first person tense as they come from you. Express your thoughts. In Quoteflections, Paul C says: "Blogging is the ideal opportunity to give expression to your thoughts. Often a blog post helps you to make sense of the world and provides professional growth."

2. Research and provide relevant links
Robin Good "points out the role of the blogger as someone that helps their reader to navigate an infinite, ever growing sea of information: Bloggers sift through and edit the information for the readers, helping the readers find information from around the web in one place, at the same time bloggers become the “go to” expert. The more people who value or trust what a blogger has to say, the more people will link to and recommend her blog. A blogger navigates readers around the web to find information that is relevant to her niche audience." You don't have to be an authority, just give your perspective.

3. Be concise
Sue Waters writes: "When you write a post, you need to be concise, to the point. Most blog readers have limited attention span and are generally less inclined to read lengthy posts. So too many words could mean your audience is gone before the reach the final paragraph. Make sure you break up your blogs with lots of paragraphs, and make the first sentence of each paragraph grab your readers attention (the aim is a bit like the first page of a book - if the first page of a book does not engage my attention than I am less likely to read)."

4. Length of blog
Sue Waters writes: "Most bloggers recommend that you mix up the lengths of your posts. As a general guide most popular blogs have an average of 100-250 words per article. If you have a lot to say on a topic, then consider making it into a series of posts instead!"

5. Encourage feedback
Ask questions to make your blog more interactive. Respond to those who comment.

6. Write a good title
Robin Good: "Perhaps the most important part of any blog post is the title. The reader is searching for your content and will only get to it, if a most appropriate, serious and well thought out label is attached to it. On the web, readers often don't get the chance of applying background understanding to the interpretation of the titles they are presented with. Just like in a real library."

7. Topic ideas for "Writer's Block"

• your teaching strategies for getting the most out of television;
• how new digital media technology helps in presenting programs in class;
• the programs you'd recommend and why;
• topical social science subjects and how they are portrayed on TV;
• critical literacy topics and TV programs;
• specific learning areas on TV;
• use of interactive white boards to dissect a program;
• AV copyright issues;
• making student films;
• lesson plans and classroom activities to support a TV program (or how the TV program supports the classroom activity);
• how the national curriculum could effect your learning area;
• a tertiary perspective on a TV program.

8. Include Images
There are free images you can use - such as those on FlickrCC Creative Commons. Judy O’Connell's Hey Jude and Robin Good suggest these sites for free images to grab your reader’s attention. Public domain clip art is also available. You can also upload videos, charts and documents to the site.

9. Hyperlink to other blogs you have mentioned.
"Comment on articles you quote and then hyperlink to your article", as a way of online social etiquette, says Coolcat Teacher Blog

10. Write first, and then format
Don't let the code get in the way of a good story. Coolcat Teacher Blog recommends leave the formatting to the end.

11. "Before you bag it, tag it"
Tags will help readers find your article. Coolcat Teacher Blog says this is a winning habit.

12. Publicising your blog
"Ping it - Sending out a ping is like raising the red flag on the mailbox to tell the mailman you have new mail to be sent. In this case, you are telling the weblog tracking sites that your site has been updated". This is explained in Cruftbox. When possible, the EnhanceTV team will ping any new blogs it features on the main page.