There’s something out there (in the blogosphere)

Following on from the ramble about why I want to encourage, and support, people blogging the question rises has this been down before, and what works. Some research later.

Amnesty, seemed have to tired something similar and failed. At the time of writing their bloggers network seems to be being reworked / rebuilt, and a friendly email to the head of their web team seem to have gone ignore. I guess the format as was, didn’t really inspire people to blog – which is a good cautionary tale, and a shame as there’s some cool 3rd party resources aimed at encouraging people to blog on a similar themes via Global Voices advocacy.

[updated] The Amnesty bloggers network seems to be online again, although it doesn’t seem any different. There are 430 (ish) registered bloggers, of which perhaps 10-15 have blogged in the last month, so perhaps 3%. Of these 4-5 are staff – which is an interesting idea in itself – to what extent should one encourage staff to get involved, or even to oblige them to be involved (pros and cons). Finally there’s also some promoted blogs – ‘storified by Amnesty UK’ – so one wonders how much these have been edited into shape.

Mumsnet, ok I found this by happen chance, and it looks to be about as good as it can get. There’s loads of people involved, which may be more of a reflection of the size of their community / readership, then the degree to which they inspire people to blog. Still I’m jealous. OK things that leap out.

• The directory is helpful, sortable in many different ways (categories, A-Z, recency, random), and searchable which is probably better than we can manage.
• The ask is that the blog sticks to editorial guidelines, and is updated at least once a month – this seems low, but perhaps as a bare minimum.
• Is there a cross fertilisation option here – can we ask bloggers to register at Mumsnet as well? if they have something interesting to say to both audiances - oh and vice versa - asking relevant Mumsnet folk to register with us as well?
• The product review widget is a nice reward / motivator and a clever bit of advertising. Not sure how to pinch this idea.
• There are some big names here, e.g. David Miliband, and is there an option to outreach to some targeted friendly people, and/or some interesting others – Chris Huhne? Trials and tribulations on being on the inside, and why I think environmental campaigners are now a pain the bum
• There’s either a profile for each blogger, or a description widget that includes a default Twitter link. Probably a Facebook page link would be a good idea too.
• I can’t face counting them, but there’s probably 800-1000 blogs listed here, which if they’ve all been updated within the month is dead impressive, and powerful. If Mumsnet has 1.6 million unique monthly users, then pro rate we should be able to manage 80-100 blogs (in addition to local presences?)
• Backing the blog network up, is a lively forum, with 3-4 topics a day and 10-100+ replies to each post. There is a lively self supporting community here. Equally someone’s on the case responding to folk, so there may be reasonable team of community managers at work here.
• There’s another as to have 4-6 blog posts up before you can join, seems like a reasonable idea.
• There’s a separate Facebook page, which again seems like a good idea, although in this case less well used, but a way to promote active members of the community – by making them admins.
• The split header block / carousel into links through to profiled blog, seems stong - and again worth replicating
• Bloggers Twitter stream seems like a must have / makes sense.
• Dual top navigation bar, which moves as you scroll also cool – but probably technically difficult.
• Local pages interesting – especially the local directory, and the associated online interactivity. i.e. folk can contribute listings, freecycle stuff, act as a Tsarina (online community manager)
• Maybe also an idea to crowdsource local issues
• Some good tips on blogging anonymously, from encrypted emails to hiding your IP address

Next up Lib Dem voice, and the Labour campaign engine room