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Chelsea Jones is the Client Services Manager at Patron Technology.

Is Blogging Yesterday's News? No Way!: The Why and How of Blogging

If you're Twittering, Facebooking, e-mailing, text messaging, and your organization is everywhere online in a bunch of new and exciting ways, you may not be focusing on your organization's main home on the Internet — that is, your own Web site! Are you keeping your site as fresh and up to date as the rest of your online presence?

That's what this article is all about. The simplest and most important thing you can do to energize your Web site and motivate repeat visits is to make it a place that patrons can count on to provide relevant, updated, and compelling content. One of the best and easiest ways to do this is by blogging.

Starting a blog on your Web site is incredibly simple (and potentially free!), but just like with all marketing techniques, you need to make sure that you're taking the right approach. And as an avid reader of blogs — especially arts blogs — I'm here to help! I'll go over some of the basics, such as how to set up your blog, and then I'll show you how to make your blog enticing to read, and how to get the word out so that your readers know to keep up with it.

But first, let's take a step back and make sure you're as convinced as I am that this is a hot idea.

WHY SHOULD I BLOG?
The easy answer is that everyone reads blogs. In eMarketer.com's report, "The Blogosphere: A-Twitter with Activity," experts are predicting that the nearly 97 million people who read blogs will increase to a whopping 128.2 million, or 58% of all Internet users, by 2013.

Last month, we concluded our look at Twitter, and asked how your organization was using Twitter. Just over half of our respondents were using it to announce their events, but nearly the entire other half weren't using Twitter. We hope Allison Klein's follow-up gave you ideas on how you can utilize it!

This month's question:
Since the onset of the recession, which of these best describes your pricing approach?

Click here to answer and see results.

This month's link roundup looks at some interesting recent developments and discoveries, both in uses of social media and technology in the arts and in the world of fundraising.

Women Take the Lead in Couples' Charitable-Giving Decisions (The Chronicles of Philanthropy, 05/19/09)
A recent study of charity donors found that women were more likely than men to be their household’s primary decision maker when determining what charities to donate to, and how much to give, providing an insight into potential donors.

Texting at a Symphony? Yes, but Only to Select an Encore (The New York Times, 05/15/2009)
To appeal to a younger audience, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra staff made the decision to borrow an idea from American Idol and encourage cell phone use at a performance, by having their audience text their votes for what the musicians would play for the encore.

Broadway Embraces Web Community (Variety, 05/22/2009)
The newest Broadway musicals are all exploring creative ways to take advantage of social media to get their shows out there, and to easily reach their fans. This varies from creating their own social network, such as Shrek the Musical's Shrekster, to innovative Twitter feeds, such as Next To Normal's weekly narrative of the show's plot.

Play it Again, Boris Johnson. Give Us a Kerbside Singsong (Times Online, 05/31/2009)
The mayor of London has placed 31 decorated pianos in prominent areas throughout London, to encourage people to play and sing in public. This push for public arts participation will last through the middle of July.

If you haven't been reading, here's a quick look at what you missed recently:

Obama: The First Arts President?
At the tail end of the presidential campaign, I wrote a blog post pointing out that candidate Obama had put out an arts policy. I hadn't known it existed, but when I read it, it seemed really smart, and like Obama might even do some things to help the field beyond lip service. What's happened so far? Well, let's read the tea leaves. We're barely past the first 100 or so days of the presidency. Certainly the extra $50 million for the NEA is good news, and the appointment of Rocco Landesman is innovative and refreshing. These are good signs.

Putting Things In Perspective - Digitally, That Is
Folks, sometimes facts are very friendly. I happened upon a chart today from eMarketer.com, which I think contains all that you need to know about prioritizing your online marketing. The data looks at the behavior of folks who are already online. Looks like big and old media still rule the day. And "search engines" (which really means Google) get the top slot for digital involvement.The most interesting thing to me is that the very next Web-based medium referenced is, ahem, e-mail newsletters. Yup, way ahead of social networking or even regular Web sites.

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