So you want to be a blogger?
One in Four editor Mark Brown presents a simple guide to setting up and keeping a blog
Anyone that tells you blogging is a complex science is lying. Put very simply, blogs are simply a way of sharing writing (and video, sound, pictures) as quickly and easily as possible.
The word blog comes from 'weblog'. The first blogs were very simply places to collect links to interesting sites or pages, literally a log of interesting places that someone had found on the web. People began to put little comments to explain what they thought of the links they had found and then an interesting thing happened. People began to find these thoughts as interesting, if not more interesting, than the links on which they commented.
So people began to put more effort into saying things rather than just collecting links, and blogging became a way for everyone, whether they were a professional writer or not, to share their thoughts and ideas with the world.
Do I need any technical skills to set up a blog?
In recent years the actual mechanism for setting up a blog has become easier and easier. Blogging platforms like blogger, wordpress, livejournal and tumbler make setting up your basic blog as easy as mucking about with word processor document. There are thousands of how-to guides on the internet. There are fewer barriers than ever to sharing your thoughts with the world. The challenge used to be technology, now the only challenge once you're online is finding out what you want to say.
All blogs work in a very similar way. You set up the blog, usually by choosing from a number of options. Once it's created, you'll be able to log in to the back end of your blog and begin writing. For most blogging platforms, the process is as simple as making a comment on an article online. Each individual bit of writing you do and publish online is called a post, or blog post.
So, what do bloggers write about?
Bloggers write about anything and everything. If you can think of a topic, you can guarantee that there are people out there blogging about it. Generally, the format of blogging has changed very little. Most successful blogs still involve sharing links to other pages, sites or events on the internet and most involve comment. If you need to get the idea of what a blog is fixed in your mind, you could do worse than thinking of it as 'a place where I can share what I've been thinking, doing, reading or watching'.
Most bloggers pick a subject to write about. The caricature of a blogger is someone who just writes about what they had for breakfast. This comes from the idea that 'normal' people who aren't professional writers only have thoughts about 'normal' mundane things. In fact we all experience and think things every day that might be interesting or useful for other people.
The first rule of blogging is probably 'work out what you want to blog about.' If you've found yourself at this article via One in Four, mental health might be one of the things that you might want to write about.
The big question: Who is going to read my blog if there's millions out there?
Anyone who writes wants to be read. If they say they're doing it for themselves they are usually lying. Blogs for the majority of people are a public space to share their ideas and views. Keeping a private one can be useful, but that's not what we're talking about here.
When you first start to blog it can feel like shouting into a deep dark well, and waiting for someone to answer.
The myth of the internet is that somehow, by some mysterious magic, large numbers of people will find what you've written. Like most magic things, there are times when it does work and time sit doesn't. Sometimes a piece of writing on the internet does attract massive attention, but if this does happen the problem is you probably won't know why the magic worked.
It is true, though; that most internet search engines are very good at indexing what is written on blogs, so that people can find it. This has good points and bad points as we'll see below.
The best place to start is to read blogs by other people about the things that you're interested in. In fact, the way that a lot of blogging works is bloggers writing blog posts about what other bloggers have written.
If you're interested in blogging about mental health, the blog Mental Nurse is an excellent place to begin. Each week, usually on a Saturday, they publish a round up of the week's most interesting mental health blogs. If you read these for a few weeks, you'll soon get an idea of who is saying what in the mental health blogging world and it's sure to spark off thoughts for blog posts of your own.
Bloggers tend to be friendly folks. If you like someone's blog, drop them a line and tell them so, and tell them about your blog. If you really like it, you could link to it on your blog. Often when you do that someone will link back. There's an ever growing network of mental health bloggers, with all sorts of opinions and backgrounds.
Using other ways to promote your blog
You can also use other ways to tell people about your blog. One very good way is to use other social media platforms like facebook or twitter to share your latest blog posts.
There's a lot of people on Twitter who would be interested in new and exciting views about mental health. The quickest and easiest way to bring your writing to their attention is to use a hash tag (#). When you put a hash in front of a word on twitter, it turns that word into a search term also known as a topic. This means that if you click it, you'll see all of the other recent tweets with the same hash tag in the order that they were posted. If you go to twitter and search for either #mentalhealth or #mhuk (for mental health tweets in the UK) you'll be able to see just what people have been saying about those topics. You'll soon find an audience for you blog and grow your following on twitter too.
Fair comment?
One of the most interesting aspects of getting people to read your blog is the fact that you begin to get comments from your readers. At the beginning, you crave comments so that you know that someone is reading and thinking about what you have written. This period usually lasts until you get your first critical comment.
Until you're comfortable with blogging, it's usually a good idea to have moderated comments on your blog. This means that you will see any comments before they appear public, giving you an opportunity to choose which one to publish and which ones to delete.
You might choose to not allow comments at all.
As with anything on the internet, you won't control who reads what you've written if you make it public. This is where the internet can be both amazing and worrying. Sometimes, you might enjoy the experience of finding like-minded people from across the world and interacting with them about what you've written and other times you might find yourself dealing with comments from people who disagree with you. It's up to you to decide how much you want to interact with the people on your blog.
Remember it's your blog. Sometimes people who comment don't see that there is a difference between keeping a blog to share your thoughts and being a public figure or journalist who blogs as part of their job. You don't have to respond to comments if you don't want to, though often debates in the comments sections of blogs end up being as interesting as the original blog posts themselves.
What about privacy?
All of us have different feelings about what we want to make public about ourselves. The best rule to follow is: Never put anything onto the internet that you wouldn't be happy sharing with a complete stranger.
As mentioned above, search engines are very good at analysing blog posts, so whatever you put up on your blog will be 'searchable' by anyone who really wants to find it.
Many bloggers take on a pseudonym or false name for this reason and try to make it less obvious exactly where they live, work or do things. The reason for this is not because they are necessarily trying to deceive or be secretive, but because they want to make sure that contents of their blog don't cause them trouble in real life, or give strangers more information about them than is comfortable. Always remember that you are never truly anonymous online and that using a pseudonym does not release you from behaving in a responsible manner. People who hide their identity online so that they can make trouble for others do none of us any favours.
As with any online activity, think carefully about what information you do and don't want to share about yourself. The great thing about blogs is that anyone can read them but that's something you must always keep in mind. Professional journalists writing for a newspaper wouldn't give out their house address or where their children go to school.
Always remember that privacy isn't just about your right to keep things private but also other people's right to not have private things made public by other people. It's most likely that you'll say something that infringes someone else's privacy by accident rather than by design. When you've written your posts and you've been talking about other people, just think: 'Would I be happy if someone posted a similar piece of information about me online?'
What about the law?
In the UK, being a non-professional writer doesn't mean that any laws related to writing don't apply to you. In UK law, posting things online is considered the same as publishing them in print.
As anyone can find what you've written, the thing that you need to be most careful of is libel. There are lots of beginners guides to journalism law online, here's a decent one to begin with. Libel is a complicated thing in the UK. If you write something about a particular person that they feel negatively affects the view that an average person has of them and which would affect their professional or personal reputation, they might sue for libel. If this happens, it is up to the person who is being sued to prove that what they have written is true.
With this is mind, you should always make sure that everything you say about other people on your blog is true and factual, the aim of all journalism professional or otherwise.
In reality it's unlikely that anyone will want to sue you, but it's always up to you to make sure that you're telling the truth.
One of the issues that arises quite often for mental health bloggers is how to talk about services. It's worth remembering libel. Opinion is always fine, as that is your personal view. Making specific statements about services in general is fine. What isn't fine is making specific statements about named individuals unless you are completely sure of the facts and have evidence to back it up.
It's okay to say that you haven't had a good experience with a service, but you should steer clear of specifics, like naming particular individual members of staff. It's also okay to talk about your own experiences but when you do this you must be as factual as possible. It can be very tempting to make guesses about why a particular thing has happened, but this can often lead you to making claims that you might not be able to back up with factual evidence.
In general, you need to remember that journalists always need to 'stand' a story. This means that they must be able to provide the evidence that what they are writing is as close to the truth as they can possibly make it. Without facts that can be shared and checked by others, a story does not 'stand'. This means that it cannot be shown to be true, which means that it cannot be published without running a serious legal and ethical risk.
To give an absurd example: You might be sure that the reason why your neighbour doesn't mow her lawn is that she is actually a spy. That's a guess unless you have evidence that other people can check of her spying activities. Without that factual evidence, a journalist would not risk publishing the story, because they couldn't prove it was true. They would be able to publish a story about your neighbour's lawn not being cut, because they would be able to show evidence of how high the grass was or what a mess it looked. If they published the story saying that she was a spy, they'd need to be very sure and also have the evidence to back it up.
That's the other rule of blogging: As much as you can, make sure that what you are saying is true by checking the facts.
Many people avoid specifically naming people in their blog posts. You might talk about Doctor X, or the Everytown hospital. Choose what feels best and most comfortable for you.
How often should I blog?
If you've read this far, it's probable that you're a natural blogger. The opportunity to share your thoughts and ideas with the world can become intoxicating but can also feel like a great pressure sometimes.
There aren't any rules about how often you should blog apart from this one: Only blog when you feel like you've got something to say.
Some people blog every day, responding to news events as they happen. Other people blog maybe once a month, but write long and considered posts. Most bloggers are somewhere in between.
So, if you find your subject, set up your blog, get writing, read other bloggers, publicise your posts and remember privacy, safety and law then... Welcome to the world of blogging!
As Linda Jones says in One in Four Autumn 2010, the internet is both an amazing and worrying place. You shouldn't let the possible risks hold you back from grasping the great opportunities.
When you get your blog up and running, come and find me on twitter (I'm @markoneinfour) and I'll welcome you on board!
This article is a One in Four web exclusive. It accompanies the article 'Together in Electric Dreams' which features in One in Four's Autumn 2010 edition.
One in Four offers a variety of citizen journalism training courses to organisations and will begin offering training to individuals in 2011. See here for further details.
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