The how and why of urban blogging

When I started blogging over 5 and a half years ago my goal was very simple: focus on something other than my dad who’d spent the month of October 2004 in the hospital after a heart attack.  At the time I had no lofty goal about what UrbanRviewSTL.com would be become.

Image: City Affair (click for site)

Tonight I will be on a panel titled “Blog City.”

The ongoing conversation of urbanism and historic preservation of St. Louis architecture and its city form is largely fueled by buzzing blogs and their readership. With so much work to be done toward the revitalization of our city, we ask how web-based advocacy of the betterment our built environment plays a meaningful role in that revitalization with the following panel
ALEX IHNEN – blogger, URBANSTL.COM
MATTHEW MOURNING – blogger, STLDOTAGE
STEVE PATTERSON – blogger, URABANREVIEWSTL

Following forty five minutes of panel discussion we will open the floor to audience questions.

The moderator will be Chris Naffziger (stlouispatina.blogspot.com).  Details: Thursday, June 3rd 2010; 7:00-9:00 PM;  Urban Eats Café; 3301 Meramec Street; St. Louis, Mo. 63118.  Arrive early to order dinner and get a beer.  I’m happy to have Urban Eats as an advertiser on this blog.

The following is some of what I hope to present during the panel.  This is basics for  web-based advocacy.

Digital strategy:

• The blog serves as the centerpiece of your communications.  You may think you can do just a basic website or Facebook page.  You could do that, but the reach of your message will be considerably shorter.  Start with a blog as the base, adding other pieces later.
• A blog is a website but the structure is better than a static website that was used in the late 20th century.  Blog differ from static websites in that they present information in reverse chronological order.  All information remains in the database and can be found when searching.  Blogs can include static pages — either as the first page or as additional pages as my blog does.
• Your blog/site should have it’s own domain (idea.com) , not a subdomain (idea.blogspot.com, etc).  Having your own domain costs very little ($10-$12/year) and looks more professional and is easier to communicate the URL to others.  From day one I’ve used UrbanReviewSTL.com even though my blog has been hosted in three different places using three different software platforms.
• The feed from the blog will be used to get your message out to the masses.  Set your feed to display your entire post, not just an excerpt.  This allows people to subscribe to your feed and read your message in their reader of choice. If you provide only an excerpt some will go to your site to read the full post but most will not.  Decide which is more important — your message or page views.
• If you are an individual with things to say consider trying to be a guest/contributor on established blogs.  I’m always looking for people with a passion for writing about the built environment.
• If your group wants to get noticed you will want your own site.
• In addition to the blog + RSS you also need a presence on both Facebook and Twitter.  Don’t pick just one or other, you need to be on both. Software makes it easy for your blog posts to post to both of these.  This provides more ways for people to find, read and enjoy your message.  Saying, “I’ll just do Facebook but not Twitter” (or vice versa) is saying “I want to limit who gets my message.”  Set up both!  There are many other social networks where you might want to be but these two are a must.  On Facebook you will want a page, not a personal profile.  On Twitter be sure to unlock your account so anyone is free to follow you.  Never ever talk about the number of Facebook Fans or Twitter followers you have or ask for more.

I decided a few months ago to share another passion of mine — food. In doing so I applied the ideas above to this new effort.  Here is a list of what I have:

• BudgetVegetarianFoodie.com is the URL.  More on that later.
• The Twitter account is @BudgetVegFoodie – the formal name was too long.
• You can also find the blog on Facebook at facebook.com/BudgetVegFoodie
• I then registered BudgetVegFoodie.com so the URL matches the Twitter & Facebook, this URL redirects to the longer name where the site is hosted.
• In retrospect I should have started at Twitter to see what names were available and what would fit.
• The blog has an RSS feed and the feed includes the entire post.   Thus, someone could read every post I do without ever visiting the site other than to get the feed URL.  Many news sites only give you an excerpt because they want you to be so into the post that you visit their site to read the rest.  Very annoying!

Comments are another area that must be considered.  If you are a business doing posts about your goods or services you do not want comments.  If you want to spark discussion about an issue you are advocating, you will need to have comments. Here are some rules:

• Make it easy to comment — don’t force someone to have an account with Blogger, Facebook or other service just to add a comment.
• Don’t hold comments up for moderation, this significantly reduces the level of conversation.
• Allow people to disagree with your opinion.
• Not all blog software is equal.  I use WordPress and it’s tools for weeding out spam are among the best.

I hope you can make it tonight, it should be an interesting conversation with differing perspectives on the role of blogging in urban advocacy.

- Steve Patterson