Web Strategy and Development Blog

Summer blogging inspiration: Share the blog

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Student, faculty collaborate at computerIt’s summertime, and your blog can help you catch some of that search-engine sunshine! Right now is a great time to build a strategy for your blog and plan how to keep it updated and fresh all year long.

Invite a guest contributor

You’re going on vacation but you don’t want the blog to rest, do you? Schedule a post for while you’re gone, or ask a guest writer to contribute to your blog.

A new point of view might add an interesting perspective. Reach out to someone with a unique specialty. Send out a request for possible contributors – you may be surprised at the response.

Before handing over those reigns, give the contributor some tips about how you usually do things –

  • Do you use internal headings? How many?
  • What types of photos do you incorporate into your posts?
  • Include suggestions about using bullets and hyperlinks for greater clarity.
  • Point them to the Web and new media blogging site for more tips and tricks.

Having guest contributors can work year round; just consider what level of access each person should have to your blog. You can request changes to author and editor permissions by visiting the blogs site.

Topics for summerFireworks at Hammons Field

If you or the contributors are struggling for content in the summer, consider:

  • Introducing new faculty/staff/graduate assistants for the new academic year
  • Explaining some of the research/publication projects that have been keeping faculty busy
  • Asking for feedback on programs, facilities, specific course work and seeing if change is feasible
  • Talking about the impact of a recent alumni
  • Probing into how your subject area touches the community or the world

Blogging tip: Media resources

Adding great photos and videos to your blog posts can make your posts more visually appealing especially when viewing on handheld devices (no one likes reading heavy text on a small screen). Tell your stories through photos (cell phone shots work great on a blog). If you need a picture quick, visit the Marketing Toolkit.

Points of prideBoomer and Growl at Hammons Fountains

Feel proud of all you do for the campus community! This summer, consider highlighting:

  • The number of students who are participating in an internship this summer
  • The percentage of recent graduates who have gone on to graduate work
  • The types of great jobs your recent graduates received

Upcoming dates

July 15: Short and Snappy: Writing for the Digital World

August 14: Social media boot camp

August 18: First day of fall semester

February 2014 Blogging inspiration: A day in the life

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Adamson lectures in Glass HallStudents, prospective students and alumni are often fascinated to know what life is like for a faculty member, dean or department head. Use your blog to share a Q&A session with someone from your area. Here are some questions to start you thinking:

  • What is your typical day like?
  • What is one thing people would be surprised to learn about you?
  • What did you want to be when you grew up?
  • When or how did you select your current academic field/specialty?
  • If you could go back and give advice to your college self, what would you say?
  • Give one great book recommendation.
  • To someone in a non-academic field, how do you describe your research/job?
  • What are you currently interested in that’s not related to your field?
  • What person, place or idea inspires you when you’re feeling “stuck” or frustrated?

Sample post

Do a Q&A style format for greatest ease, or embed a short video of the interview!

Blogging tip

It may be very tempting to use multiple fonts and sizes within your entry, but the cleaner and simpler the better. When a screen is too busy, it distracts the eye and causes the reader to move on rather than continue. Also, approximately 30 percent of web page views now come from mobile devices, meaning the screen size is already challenging enough to read on.

Instead, use different heading levels to segment your post. Informative headings will help your readers scan your post, finding the information they need quickly.

Points of pride

You blog is a fantastic way to showcase the points of pride for your department – the things that make you great! For February, consider highlighting:

  • Faculty members that have been in the news, sharing their expertise
  • Students or faculty who have presented at conferences or submitted work for publication


Looking forward

Boomer Bear expected to announce his intent to pursue a University presidential nomination today.

Some important upcoming dates to share with your readers include:

Blogging tips for September

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Sharing your stories

It’s often noted that “public affairs” is strived for by so many universities, so what sets Missouri State University apart? Your students may be asking the same thing! Since September kicks off several of the signature public affairs events for the University, it’s a good time to talk about ethical leadership, community engagement and cultural competence, and what it means at a grass roots level.

How does your department embody the ideals of public affairs, or how do you integrate or connect to the public affairs theme “Global Perspective: Why it Matters”? This would be a great topic to explain in a blog this month:

Global Perspective: Why it Matters – that’s the public affairs theme for Missouri State University in 2013-14. You’ll hear it a lot throughout the year, and we encourage you to get involved during Public Affairs Week Sept. 16-20 and Stomp Out Hunger: All Collegiate Shoe Drive Sept. 28-Oct. 19. More importantly, we want you to know that our field/department lives this mission by teaching our students (fill in how your department is connected).

Reading the Common Reader for this year, “Start Something that Matters,” is a great way to get inspired and to feel a part of a bigger movement. The author, Blake Mycoskie, founder and chief shoe giver of TOMS shoes, will be on campus to discuss how TOMS got its start later in November. 

Blogging tip

Incorporating links into your blog allows you to give your readers access to the newest, most complete information about events without having to maintain it yourself. We recommend hyperlinking the text (as seen above) rather than pasting URLs into the text.

Learn more blogging tips by attending our one-hour workshop at 9 a.m. Sept. 25 in Meyer Library 205. If you haven’t already, register now.

Points of pride

Your blog is a fantastic way to showcase the points of pride for your department – the things that make you great! For September, consider highlighting:

  • Interesting service learning projects that have your students touching lives in the community
  • Students who have been nominated or selected as Citizen Scholars

These students are shining examples, and who doesn’t love a great story?

Looking forward

Sharing upcoming deadlines, trips, presentations or University events make great blog posts, too, since they’re relevant information to your audience. Here are just a few important dates you might wish to highlight:

Blogging tips for August

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A blog is a great tool to communicate short messages to your audience, but the less often you post, the more people forget that you’re there!  This is why we recommend that blogging becomes a habit, and recommend that you update it at least once a month.

This month’s blogging tip

StudentsWe will also begin sharing blogging ideas monthly. With this assistance, we hope you will begin posting regularly to communicate with prospective, new and current students. For the month of August, an easy yet meaningful post would be something like: 

Welcome back students! So much has happened over the summer, and we hope that you are ready to begin an exciting year, finding your place here at Missouri State. Get the most of your college experience by joining one of our student organizations (link to them) or attend the New Student Festival on Aug. 18 to learn about getting involved on campus.

That’s it. A blog is not a research paper and doesn’t need to be more than a couple of sentences. If you have other ideas that are longer – that’s great, too. But they don’t have to be. Just think of it as a way to showcase some points of pride for your department.

Online resources and updating editors

Do you have questions about your blog? Review our collection of resources about making posts, managing contributors and more.

If you feel that there is someone better equipped to maintain the blog, we can add editors. Complete this online form to add or delete users from your blog.