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News Services
Kansas State University
128 Dole Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506
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media@k-state.edu

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SOCIAL MEDIA AT K-STATE

Blogs

 

Subcommittee members

 

Susan Berhow, chair
Trevor Davis
Jane Marshall
Suzy Hay
Donna F. Ekart
Natalie Blair
David Mayes

 

Types of blogs

 

• Personal blogs serve as a diary and offer a slice of life into a person's world. They provide updates and help the audience feel closer to that person. Examples: President Kirk Schulz's blog and First Lady Noel Schulz's blog.

• Institutional blogs serve as a news and communication tool for a particular K-State entity. Entries do not typically feature a personal voice but are instead written as if they're coming from that entity. Examples include the news services blog, the Foundation's blog, and human ecology news.

• Blogs that are an institutional/personal blend focus on a particular subject or entity, but the content can be fun, humorous, and opinionated. Identified bloggers write entries with a strong voice and offer commentary. Examples include the library's Talking in the Library, Dean Virginia Moxley's blog, and Doug Powell's BarfBlog.

 

Suggested blog guidelines

 

• Your blog's primary focus should be your college, department, or unit mission at K-State.

• Use your blog to draw connections between your mission and that of other K-State entities.

• Repurpose, reference, and link content from other K-State blogs and websites whenever possible. Blogs are a great place to showcase new K-State-themed YouTube videos, images on flickr, etc.

• Posting random things "just for fun" is okay now and then to humanize your blog, but don't let those things overwhelm your primary content focus.

• Shorter, more frequent posts are better than longer, less frequent posts. If you have a lot to say about a particular topic, consider running a series of posts.

• Try to post something most days. If you post less than once a week, consider whether a blog format is really what you need.

 

Blog comments

 

• Leave comments open to the extent that is practical. The nature of blogs is participatory and implies a conversation between the writer and the audience, so it is desirable to have open comments, particularly for blogs with a distinct human voice.

• If comments are open, employ a CAPTCHA or other device to minimize spam.

• If comments are open, an individual should be responsible for monitoring comments for spam and inappropriate content and to respond to questions or criticisms. Frequency of monitoring depends on blog traffic, but once a week is suggested as an absolute minimum, with daily preferred for blogs with significant readership.

• Comment approval mechanisms should be employed only if someone is responsible for monitoring and approving comments with a very short turnaround time, including weekends and holidays.

 

Tagging guidelines

 

• One of the benefits of using blogs to communicate with your audiences is that it allows an easy way to categorize the type of information you write about in a simple way. The benefits of this are twofold: (1) You give the reader an organized means of exploring topics relevant to him or her, and (2) You enable other content providers to pull your headlines by topic into other websites and blogs, thus maximizing the number people exposed to your blog.

• If K-State bloggers across campus implement a consistent tagging strategy, our blogs will become easier for readers to use and for others to reference (parse via PHP) within the greater K-State blog network. In addition to your personal tagging conventions, consider tagging your posts according to at least one of these common K-State topics areas:

 

Colleges, schools, and organizations

 

Agriculture
Arts and sciences
Architecture, planning, and design
Business administration
Human ecology
Engineering
K-State at Salina
K-State at Olathe
Veterinary medicine
K-State Libraries
Leadership Studies
Graduate School
Extension
Centers and institutes
Museums and galleries
Arts and entertainment
Departments

 

Topics

 

Student life
Academic help
Financial aid
Admissions
Administration
Research
Teaching
Study abroad
Health and safety
Engagement
International
Athletics
Recreation
NBAF
Giving to K-State

 

People

 

Faculty and staff
Current students
Future students
Alumni
Community

 

Additional suggestions that would require IT support

 

* Create a "blog network"/links list graphic
In order to promote other K-State blogs, as well as a means to label some blogs as official, no matter their design style, we recommend the development of a graphic that identifies a blog as part of a K-State Blog Network. This graphic might also carry links to other official K-State blogs.

* Using "official" K-State templates should come with IT support
We recommend that part of the benefit of using a K-State blog template is that with that template comes support from IT. This will help enable more people to engage in blogging who might otherwise be intimidated by technology.

 

Published by K-State Communications and Marketing; compiled by members of the volunteer social media work group, summer 2009