|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Blog is a terrible word. It sounds like a bad breakfast, and it seems to put people off in the same way.
Yet there is a huge potential for good in those four letters.
A mashup of web and log, blog goes back 20 years to the dawn of civilization, when the Internet was little more than a dial-up goat path. Once upon a time, it was thought that only certain people – journalists, politicians, academics and bearded wizards – should share news and dispense wisdom.
Blogs give voice to ideas that once might have gone unsaid for lack of so-called professional expertise. Blogs liberate, and charitable non-profits should pounce on the opportunity. Filled with news, photos and video clips, blogs can form bonds between their host organizations and the wide world of curious web tourists.
But keeping a blog is like caring for a pet. It needs to be regularly exercised and groomed.
Some thoughts on the subject:
• Good intentions and idle commitments litter the discussion about blogging in for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Looking after the blog should be part of somebody’s job. A forgotten blog space screams: “Nothing worth celebrating here. Move along.”
• Use plain language. Charitable not-for-profits wallow in fuzzy, aren’t-we-clever jargon. It makes web visitors, who have kindly taken the trouble to drop by, feel awkward and unwelcome. Plain language starts a relationship on common ground; jargon digs a moat.
Nobody “engages in transformational dialogue” with their friends. Nor do they “liaise” over a couple of beers after work, no matter what sort of “intentional community” they live in.
• Aim for brevity. Only a handful of dedicated readers will drill to the bottom of an 800-word think-piece on grant writing. Break long, informative blogs into two or three shorter posts, one this week, the other, next, and so on.
• Used with care, numbers add interest to blogs. Too many of them, however, leave web visitors disoriented. Here’s a suggestion: stick to three statistics that have impact.
• Read with the ears, not just the eyes. Blogs should have a conversational flow. Even though it may contain a tonne of great information, a blog that drones like the Income Tax Act won’t be read and shared.
One last thing about blogging – forget about perfection. Room for improvement, work in progress – those clichés seem made for the craft of writing.
But organizations that tackle a blog, and turn that ugly little word into something useful, may meet some friends they never knew they had.
