by Karl Kurtz
...how hard can it be?" That's my favorite among the "Top 10 Reasons for Elected Officials to Blog" posted by Virginia Delegate Kris Amundson on her blog, 7 West. She compiled this clever list for a session, "Basics of Blogging: How to Blog with the Best of Them," that she, the Center for Digital Government's Paul Taylor, Virginia House staffer Sharon Crouch Steidel and I did at the Spring Forum of NCSL's Standing Committees several weeks ago.
In advance of the session, Delegate Amundson had posted "When Electeds Blog" and I had written "Blogging in the Legislative World" to solicit our readers comments on the subject of legislators' blogs. Both of us got many very interesting and thoughtful comments in response; hers tended to be on what legislators should write about (some interesting disagreements) and mine on the problem of maintaining civility in blogs.
In my remarks at the session, I relied on a piece I had written several months ago, "Blogging: Finding Your Voice on the Web," for our legislators' toolkit, "Beyond the Election: Connecting to the Public."
In preparation for the session, I reviewed a fairly large sample of the legislators' blogs listed in the right column of this page. I found that my advice about how to blog held up pretty well. Many of the legislators' blogs are well-written and interesting, but they could take greater advantage of the blogging medium by following the suggestions in my article to: post regularly, find a consistent voice (know why you are blogging) and market your blog.
Items that I would add to the suggestions in that article now that I've had more experience doing it and the benefit of advice from several experts (special thanks to Fleishman Hillard's Mark Sendak) include:
- Post a clear policy regarding comments on your blog. Yes, I know we don't have one in The Thicket yet, but Delegate Amundson and her blogging partner, Delegate Bob Brink, have a simple statement on their site: "We hope you will comment on our postings. We do ask you to follow a few simple rules. Please understand that any comments that include profanity, personal attacks, or other inappropriate language will be removed from the site."
- In blogging, use the same political judgment that you apply to other things that you write, speeches that you make or strategies that you pursue. (This bit of sage advice is courtesy of Del. Amundson in her remarks at the session.)
- Be sure that the blogging software that you use provides a permanent link to each item that you post, not just a link to the blog as a whole. Otherwise, people who want to link to you on their own blogs won't be able to reference specific postings on your site.
- Use the "categories" feature of your blog software to help your readers find the things that are of interest to them. In my review of legislators' blogs, this was probably the item that was most commonly lacking.
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