5+1 tips to help aspiring university presidents bloggers

I’m officially back from my trip to Europe. I flew back yesterday and can confirm that it can take less time to come back from France than from Atlantic City (haven’t attended the eduweb conference in AC last month or heard about the journey back home for attendees? Check out this blog post to understand).

Anyway, while I’m trying to catch up with everything after almost 4 weeks without quality time at my office, I thought I would point you to a great article about/for blogging university presidents published this month in University Affairs: “Presidents who blog.”

The author of this piece, Daniel McCabe, is the editor of the alum magazine of McGill University: McGill News.

I was interviewed for this piece along with several Canadian university presidents and Bob Johnson.

In his piece, McCabe lists 5 6 tips for university presidents interested in starting a blog:

1) Be strategic: “The first thing you need to do is to sit down and write out the things you want to accomplish with your blog,” advises Ms. Joly. “Think about the kind of audience you hope to attract and write your blog for them.”

2) Be brief: Long-winded expositions and run-on sentences don’t cut it online. “Some blogs could do a better job of being web-friendly,” says Bob Johnson, a marketing consultant who advises universities on how to operate online. “Long blocks of dense text with no subheads or bullet points to scan aren’t going to be read by as many people as blogs that have short paragraphs.”

3) Be punctual: A typical mistake made by bloggers, says Mr. Johnson, is “leaving long gaps between posts.” Readers quickly lose interest if a blog offers no new content for weeks on end. While you don’t need to update it every single day, readers should have a clear sense of how often you will be posting. And once you’ve made that commitment – be it once a week or twice a month – stick to it.

4) Be informal: Adopt a conversational tone, be straightforward and avoid jargon. Steer clear of “CEO-speak” – words like “synergy” – that people rarely use in everyday conversation.

5) Be open to responses: A blog is a two-way communications tool, notes Ms. Joly. Readers should be able to post responses to what you are writing. Comments make for a more vibrant blog and allow the blogger to take the pulse of the community on certain issues: “It can be like a town hall.” But she advises not to allow comments to be posted automatically. Before posting them, make sure the comments relate to topics under discussion and don’t contain libelous statements.

6) Be interesting: Nobody has to read your blog if they don’t want to, so why should they? What is it about your job that you find compelling? Who are the most intriguing people you get to meet? Write about them and not about yesterday’s press conference that you yourself found awfully dull.

Do you think presidents should blog? Have you come across a really good blog written by a university/college president? Tell us by posting a comment!