2. Intro/Definition
“A blog (or web log) is a website where
entries are commonly displayed in reverse
chronological order. "Blog" can also be
used as a verb, meaning to maintain or
add content to a blog.”
Source: Wikipedia
3. Key functions it supports
Sharing „news‟, stories and opinions
Communicate quickly
Document /share lessons learnt in
projects and programmes
Share results from meetings & events
5. Key features
RSS and syndication
Audience‟s engagement & interaction
Combination of text, images, and links to
other blogs, web pages, and other related
media
6. How to blog
Decide on type of content and what topics you
want to post about
Think about who you want to write for
Assign time and responsibilities for creating
quality content
Create linkrolls (lists of your favorite links) and
tagrolls (links of your most commonly used
keywords).
Make sure your blog is on local or thematic blog
directories
Use RSS feeds
Create a readership
Source: iMark - Web 2.0 and Social Media for
Development
7. M&E
Most common platforms (Blogger; Wordpress) have
own analytics tools
– Blogger can be easily integrated with Google
Analytics
Third party applications (ShareThis; AddThis) will
allow to monitor when content is shared
Comments as proxy for user engagement
Feedburner to monitor feed circulation and email
subscribers
8. Finding blogs
Google blog search –
http://blogsearch.google.com/
Technorati - http://technorati.com/
Blog aggregators
– Global Voices -
http://globalvoicesonline.org/
– Afrigator - http://afrigator.com/
9. Hands on exercise
Logon onto http://www.pro-act.org/
OR
Set up a blog with one of the following
services
– http://blogger.com
– http://wordpress.com
Post a new item, with title, text, links and
pictures
10. Blogging on Pro-Act
Sign in on Pro-Act – http://pro-act.org/
– Create a new account if you don‟t have
one yet
To share your research ideas with others and gain feedback from a wider, online audience To attract people with similar thoughts and queries, people who can validate your ideas andalso challenge you by sharing varying opinions To enhance dissemination of news releases, general updates, publications To engage communities To publish stories for a variety of target audiences To get your name out there - even without publications or while preparing a publication