The Making of a Football Blog - Essay Example

Football Blogs A blog is something that can be used to do many things from a diary, writing important news articles, giving reviews of your favorite plays and movies, giving out recipes, etc. In all reality, a blog, short for weblog, is able to do anything that the imagination of the author has in store for it. However, this paper is going to be about a football blog. Whether this about Manchester United, Manchester City, Wolverhampton, or Chelsea, or even your favorite football club, your blog will represent you as a person on your knowledge about your football club. Generated Content The author is the one to usually generate the content of a weblog, or blog for short and simple terminology. All blogs have a home on the internet somewhere. That home could be your own website, e.g. http://yoursite.com. But, your blog’s home could also be upon a free blogging site, such http://yoursite.wordpress.com or http://yoursite.blogspot.com. Even though you have a site for your football blog and are ready to generate content, you still must have a working knowledge of the subject matter that you are writing. For example, if you want to write about your favorite Premier League Football Club your blog could be called the United Ones, Manchester U, Manchester FC, United Biggest Fan, etc. This would not necessarily be the name of your blog to which you would write stories, articles, interviews, game recaps, boxscores, matchup previews, etc. about Manchester United or your favorite Football Club. Generated content is the main thing that is on a blog. You do need to make sure that when generating the content that not only do you have the knowledge of the material that you are presenting, that you are accurate in your spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. Lastly, you also want to make sure that the content written on your blog is original and not a copy of anybody else’s work without giving them the credit they so rightfully deserve. Social Media and Blogs Social media can allow for your blog to have increased visibility to gain you more followers than you would have without the use of the social media that is available to you out on the internet. Technology allows us to get information at our fingertips instantly, and social media allows us to instantly connect with another person from anywhere in the world. Using social media, like Twitter and Facebook, in conjuncture with your blog will allow your blog to be visible in places where it might not have otherwise been seen or by people who otherwise would not go searching for it. Furthermore, the use of Twitter and Facebook can allow your followers to ask questions more directly and be able to give comments and advice to you about how to possibly improve your blog. Also, if you plan on using a blog with a lot of images within it, then it might be best if you had a photostreaming account with a site like Flickr. This might be useful for a blog about a football club, using images from the team in a photo gallery or a highlight reels. With Twitter, you can even keep up with the game live as it is being played down upon the field. Lastly, with the social media of today, you can link one with another so if you are tweeting about the game, then your Facebook account can receive those same tweets posted directly to your wall. Podcasts Another way you can provide information on your blog to your followers is through the use of podcasts. Podcasts are essentially an audio format that is posted onto the web in either QuickTime, WAV, or even Flash formats. These podcasts can be downloaded and listened to upon an MP3 player for further listening pleasure. With this feature, you can place upon your blog a recorded interview you did with Manchester United’s star, David Beckham about the upcoming match with Wolverhampton about how he feels his club lines up with Wolverhampton. Also, you can record the play by play of each game and place them upon your blog so that if your followers missed a match, they can go back and listen to what happened between Manchester United and Wolverhampton. Another way of using podcasts is to episodically release information about Manchester United through the season doing a series of interviews with the club’s players, a weekly or daily podcast allowing you to provide updates on your favorite footballers and their clubs and what’s going on during the matches that were played the week before or have yet to be played. For example, you could release a series of podcasts every Monday that give a recap of the previous week’s matches and on Fridays you could do previews for the upcoming week’s matches. Writing a Good Blog Writing a Good blog is essential to keep your followers coming back. There are several tips that you will want to keep in mind when writing your blog to make it good enough for people to decide to follow. 1. Knowledge is a must. This means, essentially, that you must have working knowledge of the subject matter that you are writing about, posting about, etc. Your followers will be able to tell if you have a working knowledge of what you are blogging about. 2. Be original. Originality is the key in keeping your followers coming back. This adds onto having a knowledge base. Your followers don’t want you to rehash someone else’s work so be original. 3. Accuracy is important. In other words, be accurate with your spelling, proper use of grammar, proper punctuation, and proper sentence structure. Your followers want something easy and smooth to read. 4. Be consistent. Consistency is the key to build a following in the first place. Some people check out their favorite blogs everyday by having them sent directly to their e-mail address. 5. Use tags and categories on all posts. Keeping your blog organized will allow your followers to find your blog through searches or allow new people to find something interesting and become new followers. A good blog will incorporate everything here and use it adequately. A successful blog, however, will use these to their advantage as well as linking their blog to social media. Social Media Measurement Social media can help you measure the success of your blog. Setting up a Twitter account and Facebook page with the same name as your blog will allow your followers to be able to tell you if they like or are willing to follow you outside of reading your blog. On Twitter, you can see how many accounts you follow as well as how many accounts are following yours. Furthermore, on Facebook, if set up as a page, you can have people who follow you hit the like button and that will then set a counter which can be linked to a sidebar upon your blog’s site. Integrating your site with social media will help spread the word of your blog. The more followers you have the easier it will be to keep them coming back, but it means you just need to keep the pace that you originally start in the beginning. A blog can be fun or it can be work, making it fun will be what helps drive in the people. Just keep a working knowledge on what you are writing about and be original even in your Tweets or Facebook quips on your wall. Being yourself will show in your work if it is well written and accurate. Conclusion Integrating social media with a blog is essential to the success of a blog nowadays. Everybody wants to stay in contact with the author of the blog, or be able to get in contact with the author instantly. Thus, your followers will want that information on a regular basis. So be consistent and write on a schedule, preferably at the same time every day. But keep yourself up on working knowledge that you need for your blog. Lastly, staying connected with Twitter and Facebook people will be able to gain better access to your blog. Read More