BrandingFire Blog

All of this talk about social media, Web 2.0, and all of the other new-fangled Internet buzzwords can be a bit confusing. While I’m already talking about stories today, the folks over at Common Craft have created some great videos that explain a lot of different Web 2.0 stuff in plain English. No geek speak. No tech talk. Your mother could understand it. And they do it just for you.
Here are some good ones:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_KF7TYKVc]

Social Networking in Plain English

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU]

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU]

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) in Plain English

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY]

Wikis in Plain English

(And just for a little fun, here’s a parody from Kelly Stewart)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7kRLQkbRHs]

Technology in Plain South Carolina English

If you’re from South Carolina, don’t be offended. This is a play on the Miss Teen South Carolina fiasco.

Blog - A blog, short for weblog, is an online collection of news, thoughts, lessons, journal entries, punditry or other writings published in chronological order on a website. They are sometimes hosted by the blog owner and sometimes by a third party such as Wordpress, Typepad or any number of other hosts. While they were originally diary or journal entries online, the use of blogs has expanded to include many other uses. Some people have even used blogging platforms to build whole websites on (possible, but not generally recommended). General Motors-Europe appears to have built their whole Social Media Newsroom on a blog platform. (Smart!)

Not Enough History Blogs
Now that we’ve gotten the whole definition thing out of the way, you probably know or at least have a good idea of what a blog is since you’re reading one. But in the history arena, I wonder how many people really understand the power of blogging. The activity of blogging has been “mainstream” for nearly half a decade now. Yet, I did an unscientific poll of 150 random websites for historic houses, history museums and history-related organizations. Of those 150, about 5 had a blog. Of those 5 only about 3 were very active. Wow! That’s 1-2% of my sampling who were using a blog to reach out to the public and start a conversation. That’s shocking considering there are millions and millions of blogs out there and thousands more come online daily. These are numbers that would make a Luddite proud. I have several reasons I suspect are behind this, but those can wait for another post. Today, the question is…

How Do We Change This?
Solving this problem is really, really easy and cheap. Solving it well is a bit tougher, but nothing we can’t overcome. First, starting a blog can be done easily and free. Go to Wordpress or Blogger, register for a free account and start up a blog. I recommend Wordpress because it’s a great blogging platform and is fairly customizable. This is the best option for someone who hasn’t kept a blog before. If you’re more experienced or more adventuresome, you can download blogging software to run on your own servers or use a hosted pay service such as Typepad (also very good).

Second, before you start your blog sit down and make a list of what you hope to accomplish with it. Is it for community outreach, to talk to your membership, to seek out new members, to generate new visitors or a combination of these things? Know what you want to accomplish.

Third, what kind of information are you going to put on the blog. (This ties in somewhat with #2.) Will it be organization/company news, personal observations, historical facts, biographies or some combination? There are a ton of things you can write about, but select carefully and then stick with it. Don’t change what you’re writing about unless you feel you need to and the change is on purpose. The reason being that readers will quickly come to expect certain things of what you write. If you write about your historic house events for two months and then you suddenly start talking about your dog Wolfie and your mother-in-law, they’re going to be confused and go away. Keep in mind, though, that it doesn’t have to be stale, dry, boring information. Write about things that will entertain and get your readers personally involved. Write stuff that starts conversations with them. It can even include personal stuff if that’s the voice you want for your blog. It’s your choice, but whatever you do, do it on purpose and with purpose.

Finally, decide who will do the blogging. It can be one person or several (a group blog). Both kinds have been successful. Just make sure whoever is writing WANTS to do it and is passionate about conversing with your audience. If you’re merely forcing them to do this, readers will see that.

Have questions on starting a blog for your history-related organization or project? Give us a holler and we’ll lend a hand. We’ve already got the branding fire going and the irons are getting hot!

If you’d like to have our blog entries herded over your way, you can subscribe at this link.

Podfade - This occurs when a podcast ceases production or is distributed so infrequently as to appear out of production. The reason for this generally boils down to:

• lack of time
• lack of listeners
• lack of goals
• lack of things to talk about

What’s really interesting is that podfading isn’t limited to amateur broadcasters. It’s happened to professionals as well.

How do you limit your chances of podfading?
Here are a couple of ideas on how you can limit the risk of becoming another podfader:

• Understand that podcasting requires a time investment - Podcasting is easy and cheap to get into, but be sure there is a time investment required for recording, editing and uploading the shows. And the more popular your podcast becomes, the more time you will need to invest in it to keep it popular.
• Make sure you have a reason for podcasting - Even if it’s just to entertain people, you need to have a purpose for producing a podcast, otherwise you’re likely to lose interest when the next “cool” thing comes along.
• Recognize that it may take a while to build a following - Don’t expect to be the big dog on the block by episode #10. It’s possible that no one will listen to you for quite some time. Hopefully, you’ll give them something interesting to listen to and have something remarkable to say, thereby building a following. But it could take a while.

Good luck and happy podcasting!

Are you confused by the meaning of Web 2.0? Don’t feel bad. I think lots of people out there are. They might have a vague idea that it means something new on the Internet, but they’re not quite sure what. Truth be told, there’s not an “official” definition, but there is a generally accepted one. If you want to read the long definition, go to this Wikipedia entry.

Here’s a quick overview of what we mean when we use the term: Web 2.0 is simply the Internet taken to a collaborative/conversational level. The original World Wide Web allowed you to put up a website and communicate with the world. However, it didn’t really allow the world to communicate back easily or directly. Forums helped some, but they just weren’t enough.

Enter Web 2.0! Around 2003-2004, new web applications started to emerge that would help users of the Internet connect and communicate in a more immediate and fulfilling manner. The conversion of large numbers of users to broadband connection helped to fan the flames. Users could suddenly start adding information to websites instead of simply reading them. Good examples are Wikipedia, eBay, blogs, Twitter, YouTube and mySpace and Facebook.

What does this mean for the history-based organization? It means there’s a whole new world of possibilities to tell your stories. And at the moment, almost no one in this space is using them. What do you want to tell the world? Maybe we can offer some new ideas on how to do it. Add a comment to this post or give us a holler.