Week Ten: Reaching People in New Ways

This week we learned that the increased use of digital campaigning, combined with more reliance on social networks for news and information, has raised the expectations of constituents seeking to interact with their governments. In fact, according to Pew Research, citizen interactions are moving beyond the website 31% of online adults use tools such as blogs, social networking sites, email, online video or mobile to find government info government information.

Most importantly we learned how leveraging new forms of content has become central to the evolution of governments’ social presences. For your blog post this week, feel free to write about whatever you want, but use two types of content you’ve never used before. Never posted an audio file? Here’s your chance! Share your post in the links below.

Things to Remember About Blogging

As we move deeper into conversations about social networks and online discussions, here are some things to keep in mind from our conversations about blogging:
1) Blogs and blog readers have unique characteristics that make them distinct from traditional forms of media
2) There are clear trends and tools used across blogs, helping form communities and currency
3) Knowing what you need and who has it can let you identify the community you need (or where you belong)

With the growing importance of social networking and search, blogs are becoming more expert and focused and less personal soapbox or diary:

• Rise in personal and large-scale aggregation, bringing together rich content from multiple places and sites
• Bloggers are typically highly educated, affluent and engaged in current events
• Bloggers are more likely to ask readers to take an action such as sign a petition, call a politician or attend a public meeting.

Bloggers are more likely to focus on specific issues or causes than traditional media. In the past year, bloggers gravitated toward stories that elicited emotion, concerned individual or group rights or triggered ideological passion. On blogs, 17% of the top five linked-to stories in a given week were about U.S. government or politics, often accompanied by emphatic personal analysis or evaluations.

Blogs rely on the traditional press — and primarily just a few outlets — for their information. More than 99% of the stories linked to in blogs came from print and broadcast. According to Pew, just four — the BBC, CNN, The New York Times and he Washington Post accounted for fully 80% of all links. Bloggers also move quickly from topic to topic: On blogs, 53% of the lead stories in a given week stay on the list no more than three days.

And don’t forget about RSS!
Really Simple Syndication: RSS is the U.S. Postal Service for the Web, but without all the junk mail

• Web feed that checks for updates to publications/blogs where you subscribe
• Content comes to you from multiple sites without searching, just look for the icon
• You’re subscribing to the feed, not the site

Think of RSS as an effective (and easy) way to distribute your site or blog’s content to your audience (be a mini Justin Hall).