Tips for Blogging on GetGo

One of the main features you'll want to take advantage of in your network is publishing your own personal or company blog. A blog (which is short for "web log") is a kind of ongoing diary where you write about a certain topic -- which can be your company, your industry, your profession -- and allow others to add their comments. Blogs are written in an informal, conversational style, which anyone can do! Blogs tell stories, real stories, and help people connect with who you are and what you stand for, etc.

You can write a blog that will be visible to any level of members in your network, as you specify when you set it up -- or it can be accessible to the entire GetGo membership if it's labeled by you as "Public." Anyone else in your network can also launch a blog if you give them "Publish" rights when you invite them to join your network.

On GetGo, public blogging is a great way to get your voice out into the community. Many are already doing that on GetGo, which we're excited to see!

But any member can also launch a blog just for their own network -- that is, a private, members-only type of blog. In particular, investors want to the see CEOs of companies they're following use a GetGo blog to talk about who they're meeting with this week (other potential investors, customers, etc) and other activities of the company. For example, an entrepreneur or CEO can blog within his or her network about what progress the company is having in R&D this week -- or, yes, what failures, too. And sales progress is another obvious thing to blog about. Investors want to be able to log into the network, say, once a week, and get a sense of what's going on with the companies they're invested in, or are considering investing in. This is a huge time-saver, for both entrepreneur and investor! For the investor, it means not having to deal with multiple emails every week trying to keep up with each company he or she is following. And it's a whole lot less hassle for the entrepreneur or CEO as well. They can be worlds ahead if they just communicate regularly with their investors via a GetGo blog that is private, just for their network. And they also then have a running history for future investors to see.

Below are some things for any and all GetGo bloggers to know as they set out to launch a blog. We've also included ways to take advantage of the tools and features of the GetGo blogging interface.

First of all, remember that you must join GetGo and start a network before you can begin blogging. (To learn more about that, see the "Demos" link on the home page.)

Below, we address Getting Started, Saving Your Text, Adding Formatting and Links, and How Often to Blog. And we'll add more tips and ideas as we go along.

Getting Started with Your Blog

First of all, it's really easy to start a blog on GetGo -- so what are you waiting for? The interface is about as simple as you can get. No reason to be timid or shy!

Once you've created a network, just look for the "Blogs" area in the lower right of your main network page and click on "Edit." On the next screen, look for an orange link that says "Set Up a Blog." First, name your blog. Think about what will cause people to want to read it. One option is using your own name or company name as part of you blog name. Or you just may want to go with something catchy, or something that people will "get" or remember. Yes, you can always change the name in the future, but it's probably best to stay with the name you start with so people don't get confused. And you can always launch another blog with another name.

After naming, the next step is to choose who can see your blog. Most people will want to choose "Public" -- but, if your network is private, then it's likely you will want your blog to be private as well, just for members of your network. The next field on the interface is for entering a sentence or two to tell people what your blog is about. After that, you're ready to enter your first post and join the wonderful world of blogging.

So, launch a blog today. Don't hold back -- start telling us your story!

Saving Your Text

Bear in mind that shorter posts are better than long ones, especially since GetGo blogs are all-text at this point. (A feature may be added in the future to upload images.) But it's also nice to go with shorter blog posts because the system has a time-out feature that will automatically log you off! That's for reasons of security, of course, which was a primary focus when the site was designed. That timeout is now set for an hour, but that can go by quickly when you're writing, getting interrupted by phone calls, etc, and otherwise getting distracted. And note there's no ability to save a draft.

So, either write a short piece and hit "Submit" -- or, to be safe, you may wish to get into the habit of writing your blog posts in a plain text editor (not Word), then just copy-pasting them into the blog entry interface when you're ready.

Adding Formatting and Links

On the blog interface, note the little icons above the text entry field. These are for formatting any text you highlight into bold, italic, or underline -- plus you have the ability to center text, insert a hard line break, and (especially important) you can insert a link to another web page.

We recommend you use the link feature often, anytime it adds value to what you're writing about. The reader will appreciate it! In fact, it's one of the single most important things you can do when blogging: helping the reader get more information, more perspective, from other relevant sources. Just highlight the words you want to be the actual link, then copy-paste the URL of the specific page you want to link to. That's it!

How Often to Blog

We recommend that you blog at least weekly, or not at all. Many bloggers post daily -- and sometimes even more than once daily if it's merited. Two or three times a week, however, is what many bloggers find to be ideal. Rule of thumb: more often is better than not often enough. Nothing's worse than arriving at a blog to see it hasn't been updated in ages!

Blogs can be a powerful tool not only for letting the world know what you or your company are up to, but for people to get a better idea of the personality of your business and management team. But do remember: keep your blog current for it to be most effective.

We'll be adding more tips to this page as we go along. (To suggest future topics, please email support@getgomn.org.)