Practices for Creating the Best Blog You Can

            The blog I chose to research and study was The Nature Conservancy blog, and the link to this blog is http://blog.nature.org/

            This blog jumped out at me as I was browsing, and I like it for a multitude of reasons.  The main reason is because I try to do everything I can to be environmentally friendly.  I am an avid nature lover to begin with, and I also enjoy photography which happens to be one focus of this blog site.  This collection of community writings covers quite a broad spectrum of topics, but all of them relate to science and nature.  Information found through this blog has varying levels of importance, but all of the information is posted for the good of the planet and probably valid. 

            First and foremost, any blog that is presenting information, should do so honestly.  Any reader will want to read an honest thought, rather than a copied idea.  I think information delivery through a blog is more effective when there is a photo or a visual element to relate the words to.  I know it helps my retention when I analyze more than one type of data.  I think it can make the blog better when it has catchy headlines, and formatted similarly to the journalistic style of writing.  The reasoning for this is partially because humans are familiar with that style, and journalism tends to present the most pertinent information first.  Readers need to be drawn into the blog just like they need to be intrigued by a story or article.  It is a bit like fishing, because the author of the blog needs to put out bait words hoping the reader’s mind will devour and keep the reader attentive.

            When the writer emphasizes the substance, and presents it to the appropriate audience the story is more likely to be successful.  The writing should also correlate the work with different data platforms such as graphics, photos, illustrations, or graphs.  The visual element needs to be just as powerful as the message in the story though.  The reader may first become interested with the graphics then want to read the blog.  Either way the organization should be neat, uniform, and not too colorful or it can be distracting.  Blogs as a whole are judged mostly by opinion, so many perspectives exist about how a blog should be.   

Social Media Tools

Blog 6-2 Social Media Tools

            Although all social media tools have the possibility of being an adequate medium for sharing information, a few tools do have some advantages over the others.  Writers need to have an audience in mind before choosing which tools to use however, because different audiences will be drawn to different media outlets.  Efficiently conveying a message to an audience needs to utilize a medium that can present some sort of familiarity with the audience.  People will be more concerned about topics they can relate to.  I don’t have a lot of social media experience, so most tools have not even been broken in for me.  I kind of like having a sort of beginner’s aspect of the workings of modern media presentations, because it truly gives me an unbiased approach to almost all of the outlets. 

            The list of new media tools listed by (Aids.gov) seems to favor a few outlets over others, however I look at them individually and potentially paired.  I rationalize that utilizing a couple of media outlets simultaneously will lead to greater success than only using one.  For example I think that blogging is a good way to create a very professional looking website in which the writer controls the input, however some blogs don’t really reach that many people.  This is where I feel that writing the initial post as a blog is great, but then go one step forward and share this information over a broader social networking site.  It would prove to travel faster and further to make a publication available for mobile device users.  Just as it takes more than one tool and resource to build a good piece of architecture, it takes multiple writing tools to build a better story.  While some tools are good for certain aspects, I feel users should use complimentary tools to cover the weaknesses of other outlets. 

Although being overly enthusiastic sometimes can cause people to publish misleading information, and if the writer is not careful many ethical boundaries can be broken in the process.  This can cause harm or disrupt the lives of individuals involved in any certain situation.  Journalists do have the responsibility of keeping the public aware of newsworthy events, as long as they do so in a manner that is respectful of the parties involved.  I think different combinations of these media utilities will be more effective if they are presented to the appropriate audiences in a professional manner.   

References:

New Media Tools. (n.d.). New Media Tools. Retrieved May 11, 2014, from http://aids.gov/using-new-media/tools/index.html#tool-bookmarkingNew