Being a student of online journalism, I’m always interested in finding ways to improve on everything I do online. Lately I have done a lot of thinking an experimenting with twitter, trying to come with, what you might call, ‘a strategy’. – How much should I link, how much should I engage in chit chat and how much info should I give about my breakfast/weekend etc. Blogging is another part on which I hope to improve in time. Although this website is fairly old, the blog is actually pretty new. I have done quite a lot of blogging over the course of my time at BCU , but it has been on WordPress.com blogs.

Dave Lee : daveleejblog.com : @davelee

Yesterday, Paul Bradshaw had arranged for blogger Dave Lee to come in and have a chat with the second years online journalism class. It was a brilliant opportunity to talk to someone who really knows about this stuff, and who’s just finished his journalism course him self.

I will try and summarize the nearly four hour class to the best of my abilities. If you’re interested in the formal presentation on blogging that Paul Bradshaw delivered to the student, then head over to the online journalism blog or check it out at the bottom of this post.

Personal- blog under your own name

Unless you know for a fact that your blog will only be temporary, like some my semester specific blogs, then you should always be blogging under your own name. If you want to set up a personal blog to aid your journalistic perspective and employability, your blog should be regarded as a permanent thing of your life, – It’s not just while you’re a student! A blog titled ‘Student Life’, might pretty quickly become hard to justify once you graduate and want to focus on other things. Blogging under your own name, let’s you change your blogs focus so that it suits your current position and interests.

Portfolio – Having it all under one roof

If you want to show of your work, CV, testimonials etc. do it on a separate page on your blog. Don’t have these things on a completely separate website, it’s all part of who you are, and I’m sure if you ask Dave, he would tell you that your blog is the biggest part of your portfolio. Chances are; future employers will google your name, and you don’t want them to either miss your blog or your portfolio, so keep it all on the same site.

Passion – Do it because you love it

This one is hard to fake, this is the fuel of your blog and what will keep it going. My guess is that since you want to be a journalist you have a passion for writing or recording stuff for others. If you don’t, then maybe you should reconsider your journalistic future. There are too many easy excuses for not participating journalistically in social media. But maybe the most important concept in this whole article will be passion. If people know you are committed and love what you do, then they will keep coming back. Remember, you are writing for yourself, not in the comfort of some large corporate machine that you can hide behind. If you don’t like what you do, it will show. Same goes for the reverse, people will pick up on your passion and will be more inclined to engage with your content.

Professional – Your boss WILL read it

It’s hard to pin down exactly what makes professional, but I like to think of it as two things in regards to blogging. First of all, don’t write anything you wouldn’t want your boss or mum or anyone else not to read. But don’t be afraid to write something if you feel you have a valid point. The other thing is to keep it useful for your readers, also the ones that are not directly interested in your personal life. I don’t like telling what topic to blog about except; don’t blog about what you had for breakfast, dinner and son on. If you do, at least turn it into something that’s relevant and useful to your readership. You will write some of your best blog posts, when you can turn events from your personal life into something interesting for your readers. – Even if it’s just something that sparks an idea in your head. But keep it on topic and control your ramblings, although I know that’s hard :)

Perfection – I ran out of ideas for ‘P’

Find your focus, as Dave talked about in the session, he started blogging about journalism but found that it was too broad. You don’t want to compete with all the big guns on broad topics, narrow it down and keep it focused, think of how YOU can add value to a story, not how Wikipedia can.

Post regularly, don’t go stall for three months at a time, find your own rhythm. You will find that the topic and the format of you blog will naturally give you an idea of the best posting interval. If your blog posts are one paragraph with just a link, then several updates like Martin Stabe does is fine, but if you write longer blog posts then once every week or fortnight might be enough. Speed is important, but don’t rush anything out unless it is absolutely breaking news.

Learn from the best. People usually struggle to come up with ideas for what to blog about, especially in the beginning. Pick a few of you favourite blogs and try and see what format they adapt, what tone do they use, how they link and how they make use of multimedia. Also look at the topics they cover, how they structure their headlines engage with readers etc.

Don’t just blog. Blogging is so much more than just writing your blog posts. Try to use 50% of your time on your own blog and spend the other 50% on other blogs leaving comments and engaging with the community. This will help you keep a finger on the pulse, give you ideas for blog posts and will show your passion for what your are covering. Here is a great quote from ‘Save the Media ‘:
“Using social media as a journalist and engaging the community means more work — but it adds more value, too. ”

It doesn’t have to be writing. You don’t have to limit your self to writing, if you are more of a photographer, radio or TV -person, then start a podcast, video blog orphotoblog, what ever suits you.

I highly recommend you keep an eye out for Dave lee’s j Blog & make sure you follow him on twitter. Dave is just out of University himself and does some great blogging on both his on personal website and the BBC Internet blog .