I recently started a new blog to help support a political campaign.  I knew I wanted to blog in support of this particular candidate, but knew I needed a specific angle.  I could have chosen to focus on one particular issue.  Jobs, the environment, the economy, education, these would have all made for a good topic specific blog, with all the post somehow related to the governor’s race and each candidate’s stand on the issue.  It would have attracted an audience that was keenly interested in that topic.  However I decided to focus on one target audience that I can personally identify with — moms.  Specifically, the audience is moms who live in Texas. So I named the blog Moms for Bill White.

Though this is apparently a “get out the vote” for this candidate, I don’t want to focus solely on opinion.  In fact I pride myself on research that I do, quoting multiple outside sources within a blog post.  This post in particular took some time and research: Rick Perry’s record on the environment.. It could actually have been a lot longer.  But I was not writing a dissertation here, just a blog post! To more closely target my audience, a follow up that discusses whether moms think the issue of the environment is important, and if so it what ways, is in order.

The blog is still pretty new so I’m still feeling my way around.  But I keep reminding myself that the content should be appealing to moms (and parents, okay dads you can read it too!)  Some of the future posts will include polls, videos and interviews with moms saying what is important to them in this election, and specifically why they are voting for Bill White.

I’ll post more updates about this blog in the future. Since it’s starting from scratch, focuses on a specific audience and is even time bound, it makes a great case study.

Last time I talked about setting goals and how to get both short and long term results with blogging. Today I’ll cover some of the technical details of setting up a blog using the Wordpress platform.

I think Wordpress is the easiest to use, and still offers a professional image. Blogger is okay and that is how I started years ago, but it is severely limited in many areas. Other great blogging platforms besides Wordpress include Typepad and Expression Engine. Some of these steps, like getting a domain name, apply not matter which blogging system you use. (Even on Blogger you can publish to your own name instead of blogspot.com)

7 Steps to Setting Up a Wordpress Blog

1. Choose a website name (domain)

So the first thing you need to do if you haven’t already, is to choose a name for your website. These days there are so many names already registered sometimes you have to be a bit creative. When I’m choosing a new domain name I usually use the tool at Network Solutions. I think it’s the easiest tool to use, to search to see if you name(s) you want are available.

Look for a name that is:

• Short, preferably a 1-3 word phrase
• Directly related to your organization or topic
• Preferably a .com or .org if you are a nonprofit
• Easy to remember

A few things to avoid:

• Dashes
• Numbers
• Sound-alike words
• Keyword phrases that create new words when strung together

I normally use GoDaddy.comsince I own quite a few names and they are the least expensive. However if you only need one domain name, you can just register it through your webhost. Some, like Hostgator, give you the domain for free.

2. Get a webhost

I’ve used several webhosts over the years… and experienced some horror stories. Downtime, terrible customer service, tough to use administration panels. To add insult to injury, then I had to move the website to another host which is another hassle.

After all this time, the one host that I have found to be the best is Hostgator. I’ve been with them for over 3 years and have no intention of leaving!

• Reliable, fast servers with 99.9% uptime
• cPanel (the easiest way to administer the backend technical website stuff)
• One click Wordpress blog install with Fantastico
• Customer service that can’t be beat
• Affordable – for one website, plans start at just $4.95 a month if you sign up for 3 years in advance or $6.95 if you just want to commit to one year.

To repeat, their customer service is amazing. Every time I’ve emailed or called, they made sure my questions were answered or issues were resolved fast. The company and customer service are based in Houston so I’m also glad to support my fellow Texans!

Click here to see all the Hostgator features & benefits and/or sign-up

3. One click Wordpress installation

Hostgator (and any webhost that offers cPanel) has an easy one-click installation for Wordpress. You simply login to your hosting account, go to the cpanel page, scroll down until you see the Fantastico button.

4. Creating a visual design & layout (theme)

Wordpress greatly simplifies the webdesign process. In fact you can start with a simple theme or even (gasp!) default and then update the design later.

When you change themes it impacts the layout, colors, text and overall look and some of the functionality, but your text stays in place so you don’t have to re-write anything. You can try out a new theme with the click of a button and if you don’t like it, choose another one!

To get some ideas you can look at other blogs. Here are 40 WordPress-Powered Websites With Awesome Designs.

I’ve used a lot of different themes from various providers, including free themes and premium themes. In general I prefer themes that you do have to pay for – as I’ve found fewer problems with them. Free = you often have to fix a lot of stuff. If you don’t know the code or don’t want to take the time (can be considerable and frustrating) go with a theme with a small fee.

Here are some of the premium themes that I have used and recommend. (Several of them have at least one free theme, so you can get an idea of how good their products are before you buy.)

After you download the theme from the website that offers it, upload the theme folder to the wp-content folder. Then go back to your wordpress login (it looks like http://yourblog.com/wp-admin). Click on Appearance on the left hand side, then Themes. Choose the theme you wish to install and confirm.

You can see how this theme looks by opening a new browser window or tab and going to your domain (i.e. http://yourblog.com). Keep in mind you’ll still have to do some tweaking like adding sidebar content and logos. So what you see when you first choose the theme may not be what it looks like when you are done. This is especially true if you have not added any posts or pages to your blog yet.

5. Create basic pages

Pages are timeless, items like the about page, donations and contact. Blog posts are time bound. John Haydon sums this up pretty well:

Posts are published in reverse chronological order on your Home Page or Blog Index Page, depending upon how you’ve configured your blog (Sticky posts will remain above your latest posts). This allows visitors to see your most recent content first, and digg for related posts within the archives. Pages have no date and time associated with them.

For further explanation see: WordPress posts vs. pages

Login to wordpress and create these basic pages. Click on Pages, then Edit. The software has already created an About page for you, so you can just edit that one. To add more just click Add New.

6. Set preferences

There are a few tweaks left for you to do in setting up your blog.

1. Go to Settings > General. Fill out the blanks – these are self explanatory
2. Settings > Permalinks. I recommend a name only URL rather than date based. Choose custom and only enter this: /%postname%/
3. Install Plugins. Upload these to the plugin folder, then activate from your Wordpress Admin. Here are the ones I recommend:

1. Subscribe to comments – Adds a simple checkbox so when people leave a comment they can get updated by email.
2. Spam Karma – Even though the designer is no longer maintaining it, it still works great for my blogs. Catching most of the spam.
3. Wordpress database backup – Makes backing up the datbase easy.
4. You need a contact form such as Contact form 7.
5. You can find other plugins at Wordpress.org

Keep in mind there are a lot of little details that I’m leaving out here for simplicity’s sake. There are other tweaks and plugins that will greatly improve your blog. These are just the basics.

7. Start posting

Now you can start posting! Simply go to Posts > Add New and start writing. Wordpress comes with a built in editor that is pretty easy to use (the Visual tab.) There are many tutorials and books that you can get if you need more help. But for the most part you will learn just by doing.

By following the steps above you are on your way to a great blogging experience!

A couple of points that he makes that I’d like to emphasize:

Give your readers a reason to share. Useful information. This sums it up quite well. Readers need a reason to want to share all the knowledge and information you’re providing to them…

There are many ways to practice this in a cause blog. For example, say you write a blog for the skin cancer foundation. How about a post on the best ways to minimize sun exposure? You could write a post explaining the difference in the SPF ratings and which ones experts recommend. How about a post on how often you should get moles screened? These are informative posts that your audience can use and are likely to share with others. This is the opposite of only writing posts about what the foundation is doing.

He also advises to stick to a specific topic:

While there are exceptions in every niche, you’ll mostly want to stick to one general “theme” of information. The more categories you have random things, the more polluted and dissolved your information will be in the eyes of search engines.

Having more categories and random topics also creates a lack of focus that will effect your readership, not just search engines or visitors from search.

Sometimes it takes awhile to get into the groove, to see what specific subjects get the most interest and are most relevant to your audience. On the other hand, it can save you a lot of time and hassle if you start off with a specific niche. Instead of blogging about your entire operation, why not just set up a blog for a specific program? For example, a food bank could focus their blog just on childhood hunger programs like backpacks and Kids Cafe.

The only point of disagreement I have with Josh’s advice is about Digg. I have used Digg over the years but have not found much benefit from it. On the other hand it is easy to set up your blog to automatically post links to your Facebook and Twitter profiles. Just be sure to set up a Facebook page for your cause instead of a personal page.

Last time I talked about the benefits of blogging.  In this post I’ll cover setting goals, both short and long term results and return on your investment.

Goal setting

You’ve probably heard of the SMART system for setting goals.  Make your goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.  Here’s a great post from Lori Rice about goal setting.

While it would be great to acheve all of the benefits of cause blogging at once, that’s not realistic.  First, in order for your goals to really be SMART you have to start with one primary goal and focus on that.  Secondly, achieving results online takes time.

As you brainstorm to decide what your short and long range goals are for blogging, and more generally marketing your cause online, focus on the benefits of what you want to achieve, not on tasks.  For example, setting a goal to “get a website up” is not beneficial. A goal to “create a website that will move people to take action: first by subscribing to our weekly newsletter” is more specific and benefit oriented.

Brainstorming question: what results do you want to achieve? Review the benefits of blogging and how these translate into specific goals such as:

• Publish information about our cause two times per week
• Ask readers to take action on a policy issue at least once per month (contacting elected officials, signing a petition, sending a link to a friend)
• Publish one press release per month on a site such as PR.com; then reword to use as a blog post (increases publicity and website traffic)
• Build relationships between staff and readers with a monthly blog post from leadership: executive director, volunteer coordinator and development director
• Build community by asking questions in blog posts, requesting comments and feedback; add this to the end of blog posts whenever possible

Tracking goals

Once you’ve set goals for your online efforts, it’s important to document them and follow up. Here’s how:

1. Use tools to help track your progress. For example running website traffic reports each month; using Google Alerts to find out about mentions in the media or links from other websites.
2. If you’re working for a nonprofit, designate one person who will keep track of progress and provide reports
3. Online marketing takes time, especially with a new website or blog.  Keep at it while you wait for concrete results.
4. Celebrate incremental improvements such as blog comments, readers contacting you via email, increasing web traffic.
5. When you find something that is working especially well for you, ramp up that effort. For example, if you get more feedback from readers when you post quotes from your clients, do that more often!

Measuring return on investment

Now for a little good news/bad news…

Unlike other efforts, online marketing such as blogging, can be more difficult to measure.  With something like direct mail, you can scientifically measure it — from our mailout of 10,000 letters we got X number of responses, % response rate and an average gift size of $X.   It’s easy to calculate the immediate return on investment.

On the good news side, cause blogging and other online marketing carries very little financial investment.  Your investment is more related to time and effort rather than money.

Things that you can easily track include:

1. Which blog posts are getting viewed the most
2. How many RSS readers you have
3. Number of Twitter followers and Facebook fans
4. Number of mentions in the media (online and off)

The big question is what results are we getting from these efforts? Donations, more volunteers, measurably increased publicity? This can be more difficult to track, especially at first.  Once your blog really takes off, it will be easier to prove that your online work is making a real difference.

Getting started

When starting a new blog, allow yourself at least 3-6 months for you to really get your feet wet blogging.  You’ll be learning which kind of blog posts you enjoy writing most, which get response from readers and kind of figuring it out as you go along.  There’s really no other way to do it, but to just dive in and get going.

This is the same amount of time it usually takes to really start building traffic as well.  Your blog posts will start to get ranked for search terms in Google and other engines.  Other bloggers will notice you and start linking to your blog and traffic will slowly build.

Focus on the long term

Online marketing activities like blogging are long term strategies with cumulative efforts over time producing results.  In the business world, they say it takes at least seven contacts before a customer buys.  Most of the time blogging is much less direct than cold calling or targeting major donors.  So it may take many more contacts for supporters to take action.

So in the first few months, it’s important to stick to your goals and activities that support them.  Celebrate the little achievements, ask for feedback from others and network with other bloggers.  Don’t get discouraged!

Back to basics – relationships

Activism, advocacy, public relations, fundraising and promoting a cause generally – is based on building relationships with people.  Blogging is just a tool to help you do that.

Beth Kanter recently observed about her work promoting arts organizations that:

A successful social media strategy with arts audiences is more like an audience development or education program, not a straight ticket sales strategy.

With every strategic blog post, tweet, or facebook update you are potentially building a relationship with others who are also interested in the same cause.  At the end of blog posts, include a small note encouraging readers to leave a comment. Then when someone leaves a comment, leave one in reply.  Send a response to email inquiries you get.  Take the initiative to reach out to other bloggers and nonprofits by emailing them and leaving comments on their site.

You may never know when or what  specifically encouraged someone to take action such as making a donation or volunteering.  Most likely, it’s the cumulative impact of the interactions they have with you online.

Improving results with focused blasts

It might be easier said than done to appreciate benefits that are hard to see.  You want to see that the time you’re investing is making a difference.

Once your blog is established you can improve results with short term campaigns or “blasts.”  No not email blasts or SPAM!  I mean focused, short term campaigns.  I’ll go into these in more detail in future blog posts, but here are a few ideas…

1. Submit 30 articles in 30 days to a website like EzineArticles.com to build traffic to your blog (include 1-2 links in the “author box”)
2. Use your blog to promote a time based event, such as an auction fundraiser
3. Call to action based on a holiday, such as can food donations for Thanksgiving
4. Use Facebook causes to request donations because of your birthday

These kinds of short term campaigns will give you some encouragement to continue your online efforts.  It will give you and others connected to  your cause measurable results — proof! — that it works!

Next… Part 5 – How do I set up a blog? Now that you know the potential benefits and results of blogging, we’ll talk about how to set up a blog using the most popular platform, Wordpress.

The Health Care for America blog is advocating its position on the healthcare debate.  With the news on this issue changing every day, or every hour even, the authors are posting several times a day.  The fast and easy web publishing medium of blogging makes this possible.

For example, they were able to post a link to the Senate bill with commentary nearly as soon as it was released.  They’re also posting daily roundups of articles in the news, photos, and videos.

You can see that many of the posts are short and very tightly focused on one narrow aspect of this broad topic.  With blogging you don’t have to be long winded or overly concerned about scholarly writing!  Your writing can be quick, conversational and to the point.  When time is of the essence blogs get information and calls to action out fast.

In the previous post in this series I talked about the various categories of cause bloggers.  Now I’ll go into more depth about the benefits of blogging for anyone who wants to get a non-commercial message out to the public.

1. Information and Advocacy

There are many cause organizations whose primary or secondary mission is educating the public about an issue.  Blogging provides a way to broadcast new information quickly.

Blog posts can reference and comment about current events and news items related to your cause.  For example, say you work for a cancer advocacy group.  A new report from a well respected medical organization has new research about cancer treatments.  You can quickly write up a blog post with the highlights of the new item and then link out to the news source.  This blog post provides valuable information to your audience.  If you consistently include these types of posts in the mix, your blog could become a “go to” source for information on your particular topic.

Also because of the ease of use and quick to publish nature of blogs, advocacy efforts can be promoted quickly.  For example, if your group is encouraging members to call an elected official for a vote that day, you can get that message out fast.  Just publish a blog post about it and for maximum impact, send the same message out to your email list.

2. Publicity

Getting attendees for events, launching new programs, recruiting volunteers, and fundraising drives are just a few reasons that charitable organizations seek publicity.  Blogging extends traditional publicity techniques like press releases and media appearances. For example, say you’ve gotten an interview on the local television news.  You can add the video clip to your blog.  When an online newspaper includes your group in an article, that’s another good reason to write a new blog post.

Because blogging allows (and encourages) frequent updates,  publicity efforts can be continual during the life of a campaign. Let’s use the example of a 5K run that benefits a charity.  Multiple posts keep the public informed with the latest news.  The closer you get to the event the more often you’d add a new blog post. Here are a few of the topics that you could cover to gain publicity for the 5K race:

1. Initial announcement of the date and place of the event
2. Details about the race course including certification, photos from the trail
3. Reminder about the deadline for early bird registration
4. Training opportunities for runners who’d like to participate
5. Profiles of people who have already registered
6. Opportunities for volunteering the day of the race
7. Promoting/thanking corporate sponsors or underwriters
8. Stories about how proceeds from the event will benefit the cause
9. Information for those who’d like to raise funds via pledges or other fundraising
10. Photos and videos of race day
11. Race results

With this strategy you’re building momentum leading up to the event. Every time you publish an update it’s another chance for your event to be discovered by the media, potential attendees and other interested parties.

Maybe this sounds like a lot of work, but it doesn’t have to be. Blog posts can be short 100-300 words even.  Entering a blog post, proofreading, and hitting publish is about a simple as sending an email. (Plus you can always go back and edit later… unlike the print newsletter with that nagging typo or misspelling of a donor’s name!)

Your time spent blogging can also be time saved when you prepare for other communication venues. Crispin of the Online Community Engagement Blog describes how content on a blog can be re-purposed:

Blogs are also an excellent way to keep your community informed about the latest information about your project. They are more flexible and much faster to produce that a traditional newsletter, but the content can be used later for those newsletters – whether online or hard copy.

Using a blog as part of a publicity campaign will pay off for months and years to come. Since pages that are automatically created as blog entries are live on your website forever (unless you intentionally delete them) you are setting the stage for subsequent campaigns. For example, if you do a toy drive every holiday season, the next year website visitors could look back on the previous year’s drive as an idea of how successful this year may be. You are also proving your trustworthiness in advance to people who are new to your efforts.

3. Website traffic

By blogging you can greatly increase the number of visitors to your website.  Every time you write a blog post, a new webpage is automatically created by the blogging software.  The more pages there are, the more opportunities you have to get attract visitors to your site.

Studies continue to prove that blogging brings in more traffic.  A study from Hubspot showed that companies who blog average:

• 55% more visitors
• 97% more inbound links
• 434% more indexed pages

In addition to links on other websites and referrals from friends, people will find your blog posts by entering words in the search box in their internet browser or on sites like Google or Yahoo.  If a post you’ve written covers that topic and comes up on the first page of results, then someone new has just discovered your website.

There are a lot of technical reasons that blogs are great at bringing in traffic, especially from search engines. However, I won’t go into those right now. What has been successful for me in getting good search engine rankings is actually pretty simple.

The golden rule is to provide high quality, focused content that readers will find appealing.  Secondly create headlines (post titles) that include words that they may be searching for and accurately reflect the topic of the post.  When you consistently do these things other blogs and websites are more likely to link to you (often without you asking them to).  This is the other side of the search engine rankings coin: incoming links.  All this to say that blogging makes getting more traffic to your website easier than ever.

4. Personality

In the previous two posts of this series I talked about how blogs began as personal medium, often written by one person just writing about their family or personal interests.  Personal or hobby blogs are still the largest category of blogs.  Why are they so popular?  Not only is personal blogging attractive to bloggers themselves, but they tend to attract loyal readers.   Blogs are often written in the first person, with an interesting point of view.  It’s like they are writing directly to YOU.

Whether a blog is written by one author or several, they are much more engaging than traditional writing that you’ll find in press releases or static web pages.  People keep coming back to hear more from these bloggers because it is interesting to read.

Lindsey of Notes for Nonprofits shares some insights about being Personal Versus Professional:

When it comes to social media, a bit of personality goes a long way. When you reveal some details about your life, it allows your audience to be drawn in. However how much is too much? Balance is the key. Only sharing news/advertising etc doesn’t show off your personality or your organization’s personality. People give to people not to organizations.

When people feel like they know you or the personality of your nonprofit, they begin to feel like you are “friends.”  Yes this is an overused word these days, but it’s still true.  Relationships are the cornerstone of engaging an audience, advocating for an issue, becoming effective at your mission and raising funds from supporters.  So that brings us to benefit #5 of blogging, building relationships:

5. Building relationships

Building relationships with potential and current supporters has always been the hallmark of good nonprofit development work.  The personal writing style and frequent updates of blogs can help you in these efforts.

All relationships go through stages :

1. Initial introduction
2. Get to know each other
3. Developing rapport and trust
4. Commitment
5. Long term strengthening

Not every relationship goes through all of these stages of course.  However with the strongest advocates for your cause or major donors this is the path that you hope they will take.

Website traffic and publicity efforts built through your blog aid in introducing new people to your cause.  You get to know one another and develope rapport and trust as you continue to provide high quality information.  Blogs provide a place for readers to leave comments, which is a way to have a two-way conversation with readers.

Demonstrating  results that your group is achieving on its mission goes a long way in developing relationships.   On your blog you can publish client success stories, photos that illustrate your stories, statistics on number of people served, and goals achieved.  Following up after fundraising events or campaigns can be done via a blog. Donors appreciate knowing their contributions are going to the right place and are actually making a difference in the cause.

In this internet age it’s possible to effectively move supporters along the line of first contact to raving fans virtually, without you even being directly involved! Some of these new converts will eventually reach out to you in the form of leaving comments on your blog, sending an email, volunteering and/or making a financial donation.  Though it’s possible that you’ll reach thousands of new people through your online efforts that you’ll never have personal contact with.  Some of these may eventually become some of your most loyal followers.

These five categories cover just the major benefits of blogging.  There are so many!  Maybe you are wondering how to get these benefits and where to start.  In Part 4 – How can blogging get results? I’ll discuss the how to set goals and measure results of cause blogging.

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In the first part of this series we explored what blogs are, how they started and what they have become over the years.  Today were’ going to talk about blogs that promote a charitable, non-commercial cause in one way or another.

There’s a pretty important reason why I didn’t name this site “Nonprofit Blogger.”  The information presented here is of course relevant to nonprofits and occasionally I’ll discuss issues that impact 501c3 organizations in particular.  However there are other types of groups that blog for a cause, some are formal organizations and others are not.

So I like to refer to this group collectively as “Cause Bloggers” instead.  You may notice I also like to use the name “Cause Enthusiasts” which includes nonprofit organizations, other group types and individual supporters.

As I mentioned last time, blogs that promote a not-for-profit cause are some of the most growing types of blogs on the web.  At last year’s national AFP conference, where traditional topics like planned giving  and special events are the norm, there was more than one presentation about blogging.  On the flipside, at one of the biggest internet technology conferences, BlogWorld Expo, a seminar track specifically for causes was offered for the first time this year.

Cause blogs can be placed into five categories:

1. Nonprofit organizations

Let’s start with the most obvious. Charitable organizations of every size and shape are blogging;  This includes international organizations, national charity headquarters,  local affiliates and local/regional groups.  Nonprofits with just about any mission can benefit from a blog: social service agency, environmental group, foundation, school or any of the hundreds of types of causes out there.

Blogs that are published by a nonprofit organization are authored by a member of the staff or a trained volunteer.  The blog may have multiple authors, for example, the executive director, a volunteer manager and someone who works directly in service delivery.

The topics of nonprofit blog posts may include:

• Announcements about upcoming events such as fundraisers, an open house or volunteer training day
• Photos and stories after events have happened
• Profiles of volunteers or donors
• Stories about service recipients
• “In their own words” accounts from volunteers or clients
• Updates on new or ongoing projects

The tone of the blog varies depending on who is writing. Like personal blogs, nonprofit blogs are most engaging when written in the first person from someone who lets their personality shine through.  On a nonprofit blog this does not mean the writer shares about their personal life, but writes about the cause and the nonprofit in a personable, interesting way.

A nonprofit that does a great job with their blog is Heroes for Children.  They use the free blog service provided by Blogger to publish news items, featured events, and spotlight the volunteers, children and families they work with.  Posts are written by several authors including the group’s founders.  You’ll find many engaging stories and photos on this blog that helps the reader feel connected to the cause.

They’ve also integrated their Twitter stream on the top left.  I’ll talk more about social networks in a future post, but as you can see here the quick publishing nature of Twitter makes it easy to keep the blog updated when you don’t have time to add a full blog post.

2. Associations or coalitions

There are a variety of groups whose focus is advocacy, informing the public about a cause or providing benefits for association members, rather than service delivery.  They may or may not be 501c3 nonprofits.  Posts on these blogs may report on policy positions, activities such as demonstrations or petitions, or providing up-to-date information about a particular topic.

The ONE Campaign has a very active blog that is in addition to their website.  They have multiple authors whose names appear at the top of the entries.  They report on news related to fighting poverty in the United States and around the world.

Photos and videos also play an important part of making the cause real to people who read the site.  Showing ONE events and volunteers demonstrates the strength and credibility of the campaign.  Readers can write comments related to the stories featured on the site, providing a venue for two-way communication.  Visitors are also invited to participate by hosting a ONE banner on their own website or blog, and by joining their group on Facebook.

3. Government and political related blogs

There are a variety of government and politically related blogs.  Some are non-partisan, others are campaign oriented or are otherwise promoting one or more agenda or policy positions.  Here are some of the types of political groups that are blogging:

• Government offices
• Elected or appointed officials
• Political action groups, non party affiliated
• Watchdog groups
• Political parties

You’ll find political blogs at all levels, for example the White House has a blog as another way to provide public information.  It includes policy issues as well as more lighthearted features.  Candidates in local elections can easily set up a blog like Todd Pipitone did using Wordpress.com when he recently ran (and later won) a town council seat.

Just like other blogs with a non-commercial purpose, political blogs are a way to publicize a particular point of view. In a recent article on PBS.com, Steven Davy said, “Politicians are figuring out what social media technologies like blogs, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have to offer: direct access to voters.” while on the other hand, “It’s important in a healthy political environment for journalism to maintain its core functions to inform the public and keep a critical eye on government.”  Blogs provide a venue for both sides of the political equation.

4. Corporations

While many businesses blog to promote their goods or services, some are even blogging for a charitable purpose.  These blogs may be written by someone in their community relations department or an associated foundation.  While the site promotes the company in a round-about way, the focus is publicizing a cause, and what what the company and employees are doing to help.

A great example of a community focused blog published by a for-profit business is the Tyson Hunger Relief blog.  According to their “Our Commitment” page:

Since we joined the fight against hunger in 2000, Tyson Foods has partnered with several national organizations including America’s Second Harvest and Share Our Strength to help make a difference where we can. Through these partnerships, Tyson Foods has donated more than 54 million pounds of chicken, beef or pork – enough for approximately 216 million meals – to food banks and agencies serving local communities around the country.

What I love about the Tyson blog is how they shine the spotlight not on themselves, but on individuals and groups who are working on this issue.  They feature Hunger All-Stars who are sometimes public leaders, but more often are working behind the scenes to help people at risk of going hungry.   The blog also showcases local food banks and pantry programs.  They are great at “spreading the love” to other bloggers and Twitterers who advocate for hunger relief.

Overall I think they do a great job at storytelling.  The personal profiles are balanced out with a variety of other informative topics and Tyson activities.  You’ll also find a good use of photos and lot of videos on this blog.

5. Every day advocates

This is the largest group of cause bloggers!  They’re the ones that can make the most difference in raising awareness, advocacy and even fundraising.

The Technorati 2009 State of the Blogosphere report showed that an overwhelming 72% of blogs are personal topics, not business related. These are people who blog about what they care about – a hobby, their family and causes they support.

These everyday advocates are writing these blog posts about causes they care about just because they get personal satisfaction from doing so.  They want to tell their friends, family and the world about an issue.  They may just want to spread information or also aim to get others to join in to lend support.

A blog may focus completely on a cause related topic if the writer is very passionate about it.  Otherwise, you’ll find these are simply individual posts on a personal blog, for example:

1. Posting as part of a blogging event like Blog Action Day or Bloggers Unite
2. Participating in an athletic event such as a 5K run that benefits a charity
3. Talking about how their family participates in the community, such as school activities or holiday celebrations
4. Reflections on their personal struggles, such as cancer or other health issues

These cause bloggers are usually doing so on their own accord, without direction or requirement. However, nonprofit organizations have a great opportunity to leverage the publicity their cause is already getting because of these passionate cause bloggers!

Here are a few ways that nonprofit organizations can connect with cause bloggers:

• Leave a relevant comment on their blog post
• Subscribe to their RSS Feed so you can get to know them
• Email the blogger and thank them for their dedication to the cause
• Recruit bloggers to write a guest post for your nonprofit’s blog
• Sponsor a blog action day
• Have a blog writing contest
• Follow their twitter feed
• Ask and answer questions on Twitter

So that is a run-down of the major types of cause blogs.  Hopefully this has given you some ideas about the scope and opportunities that blogging provides in publicizing a cause.  Next up… Part 3 – What are the benefits of cause blogging?

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Blogs have been around for a long time but there are many people that are just now finding out about them.  I sometimes still get quizzical looks when I say that I blog or attempt to discuss how great blogging can be – for personal reasons, business or nonprofits.

The truth is, there’s nothing complicated about what a blog is, or what it can do.  In this post I’ll answer the question “what is a blog” in simple terms from a historical perspective, and what blogs really mean today.

A blog (which is short for the term “weblog”) is a website where the publisher shares news and/or opinions with readers. Entries (called posts) are often listed in order of most recent first on the main homepage.  People who publish blogs are often called bloggers, and you can use the verb “to blog” to describe the activity.

As this excellent video from Common Craft says, blogging makes sharing news easy…

Blogs often share other characteristics such as the ability for readers to leave comments on posts.  This provides a venue for communication not just between the blogger and individual readers, but amongst readers themselves.

Darren Rouse, publisher of Problogger and co-author  with Christ Garrett on a book by the same name says that building community is one of the most important principles of building a successful blog: “Over the last 7 years I’ve started over 30 blogs – the three that became most successful for me were the three that became communities rather than just information portals.”

By nature blogging is a social medium, and often bloggers will link to other blogs that provide similar content, sometimes along with a quote that applies to a particular point.  (As you will see from this post!) Additionally, most blogs have a page for date based and/or category based archives to make it easy for readers to find back-content.

This is the end of short and sweet answer to “what is a blog?”  For more information than you probably require check out the wikipedia reference list or keep reading…

A brief history of blogging

Back in the mid-1990’s the earliest blogs were generally of one of two formats…

1. The weblog was often just a page where webmasters would publish a list of site changes in reverse chronological order.   Others were just lists of favorite weblinks that the person wanted to share with others.

2. Personal blogs, akin to a diary, are usually written by one individual who is simply publishing updates on their personal life.  Personal blogs may include opinions, links, and photos.  Some personal bloggers write to keep friends and family updated; others do so just for the enjoyment of it, and don’t care whether posts are read and by whom.

Blogging today

Since its beginnings as primarily a web based personal diary, the blog has evolved into a platform for sharing news and ideas of all kinds, with commercial and non-commercial purposes.  To explore some of the many different topcis coered by blogs you can visit a site like Blog Catalog which has a topic based directory or see blogs.com top 10 lists.

In the early 2000’s blog publishing tools and platforms became available to make blogging easier to use, many of which were free, and helped increase the popularity of blogging.

Why is blogging so popular? In short,

“It’s the easiest, cheapest, fastest publishing tool ever invented,” said Jeff Jarvis, news blogger, media pundit and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism. “The people have a voice they didn’t have before.”

(from Wired, After 10 Years of Blogs, the Future’s Brighter Than Ever)

How big is blogging today? Here are some statistics provided by Blogworld:

• Over 57 million Americans read blogs.
• Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
• 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.
• 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
• 6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog.
• Over 120 thousand blogs are created every day.
• There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day.
• 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs.
• Blog readers average 23 hours online each week.

Types of blogs

In general blogs fall into two broad categories: personal and business. Technorati, a website which aggregates thousands of blogs and blog posts recently published its 2009 State of the Blogosphere report. It showed that 72% of blogs are hobby and 28% are business related. However, the study also found that personal bloggers are posting less frequently and business related blogs are growing.

Here’s a more detailed breakdown of different types of blogs:

1. Personal or Hobby Blog

Many bloggers just write for the fun of it, to share their ideas, events happening in their life or thoughts on a particular subject.  Many writers  focus on the hobby they are passionate about and only briefly mention personal life details.  The Technorati report further described the motivations and habits of personal blogs:

Representing 72% of the respondents to this survey, hobbyists say that they blog for fun. They don’t make any money from their blogging – and only some would like to do so. More than any other group, though, Hobbyists say they blog to express their “personal musings” (53%). 71% update at least weekly, while 22% update daily. Because 76% blog to speak their minds, their main success metric is personal satisfaction (76%).

There are blogs on just about everything: sports, food, photography, celebrities, fashion, business…the list goes on and on.  Often blogs will be about a micro-topic within a broad category, for example, Cupcakes Take the Cake focuses on just, you guessed it, cupcakes.

2. Business

Many businesses from solo entrepreneurs to multi-national corporations, are using blogging as an effective strategy to reach customers.  In all cases, a blog provides a much more personal way to connect with current and potential customers.  Here are some of the benefits for specific businesses with examples:

• Corporations publish company news with a more personal touch than traditional press releases (Southwest Airlines)
• Small businesses highlight products, sales and connect with local customers (Allen’s Retail Liquor)
• Real estate agents share information about listings, tips for buying/selling a home (ReBlogWorld)
• Consultants share their expertise, which increases their reputation, trust with the audience and get more clients (Pamela Grow)
• Professional speakers share video clips of speaking gigs, with aim of getting more bookings (Mike Robbins)
• Authors blog to connect with readers/fans, sell more books (Neil Gaiman)

3. Problogs

While existing businesses may blog to promote their products or services, there are other blogs that generate revenue directly from the web.  These blogs focus on a specific topic and often written by one person, a solo-entrepreneur or “problogger.”   It’s unclear who first coined the phrase, but Darren These blogs generate revenue from space advertising, programs such as Adsense, affiliate programs or the sale of products.

David Risley publishes PC Mech, a blog with computer and technology information.  This is how he describes problogging:

As a pro blogger, we are not interested in promoting an offline business. Secondly, a pro blogger specifically targets a market and does not blog about anything he finds interesting. A pro blogger has to stay on topic. A pro blogger often releases content in a strategic fashion so as to promote a particular product, and the methods of doing so is an entire subject otherwise known as marketing.

Being a problogger is demanding. It requires a combination of writing skills and marketing skills. It can also be very lucrative if you are in the right market and are adept at the two above skills.

Sometimes blogs will start out simply as a hobby, and as they gain popularity the owner will begin to monetize the site.  This is what happened to me when I started Step by Step Fundraising.  At the time I wanted to start a web-based business, but I didn’t think this site would be a web business.  I was simply sharing my own experiences fundraising as a volunteer with others.  I was surprised to find that after several months the site was getting pretty popular and there were ways to earn an income from it!

While many problogs provide a part or full time income for the sole writer, others employ not just one person but several, sometimes hundreds.  Weblogs Inc. (which was purchased by AOL) and b5Media are two of the largest blog networks that hire writers to provide content for their blogs.

4. Journalism

Traditional print newspapers are now using the blog platform to publish online versions of their articles.  The LA Times is listed in the Top 100 blogs by Technorati (as of today it’s at position 20).   However, a media outlet doesn’t have to be in a big market or national stage to take advantage of blogging.  My hometown newspaper, which serves a population of about 125K uses a blogging platform.

Some journalists are bypassing traditional media altogether.  Many of these blogs started as single journalist publishing their work as a blog and evolved into a multi-author site. Some of the most well known journalistic blogs are Huffington Post and Daily Kos.  Many others can be found at the Technorati list of political blogs.

5. Cause blogs

Blogs that promote a not-for-profit cause are some of the most growing types of blogs on the web.  As evidence, this year was the first time since the BlogWorld conference began in 2007 that a seminar track specifically for nonprofits and cause marketing was offered.  A number of volunteers and nonprofit staff were in attendance. A social media fundraising campaign was conducted which raised over $70,000 for cancer related nonprofits.

A wide variety of cause based groups are gaining publicity, educating the pubic about an issue, connecting with donors, recruiting volunteers and reaping many other intangible benefits by blogging.

In the rest of this series I’ll explore examples of great cause blogs, how nonprofits can impliment a blogging strategy without spending lots of money and how to set goals and measure outcomes.

Next up… Part 2 – Who are cause bloggers?

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