Why Blog?

Blogging is one of the oldest forms of social media. The first weblogs or blogs appeared around the time that the World Wide Web first became popular in the mid 1990s. Since then, blogs have evolved greatly, becoming a vital part of online marketing campaigns and a great way to extend your personal and professional brand. The tools have become much simpler too — anyone can start a blog for free in a few minutes. Why is blogging important? Well, for faculty and departments it can provide plenty of opportunities.

Blogging for Faculty

The Internet is playing a larger role all the time in making education more interactive. Tools like blogs have enabled teachers to make their teaching more productive, engaging and compelling for students. Here are a few of the reasons that, as a faculty member, you might want to consider blogging:

Manage Your Classroom
A blog can be a centralized portal for posting homework, assignments, audio and video lectures, class notes, and links to additional learning resources.

Improve Your Writing Skills
Being a great lecturer is one thing, but being able to communicate effectively with students in written form can also be important to providing a comprehensive course. Blogging helps you to refine your skills at communicating via the written word.

Promote Student Engagement
Blogs provide the ability for people to leave comments and engage in discussion. Use your blog to start a discussion topic and encourage students to share their thoughts and opinions.

Position Yourself as a Thought Leader

From a professional standpoint, blogging can be a great way to express your ideas, thoughts and research to colleagues in your field. Blogs allow you to impart your knowledge and expertise in a very open and transparent way to the masses. The discourse and dialogue created through your blog can help you to become more recognized in your field and open up all sorts of new professional opportunities.

Blogging for Departments

Blogging is one of the most valuable tools available for marketing and promotion. There are hundreds of millions of blogs online today on just about every topic. For organizations, using blogs to provide timely, relevant, updated information is not only good for search engine rank, but is one of the primary ways to promote programs and provide information to students and prospective students. Here are a few reasons you may want to consider blogging for your program or department:

Fuel for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Google loves fresh, timely, relevant content, and providing frequent updates on a blog around key topics can be a great way to get more “Google Juice”. Include common search terms in your blog posts and blog headlines and Google will reward you for it.

Create a Two-Way Conversation
Traditional media like brochures and advertisements are one-way. Social media tools like blogging create a multi-way conversation; not only are you sharing key messages with your audience, but they are able to respond directly through comments, or share your content with others. Be open to conversing with students and prospects on these channels, and build trust and credibility.

Blogs are Cost-Effective
Compared to traditional channels such as radio or print advertising, blogs can be a very cost effective way to promote your department or program. While creating timely, fresh and relevant content does take time, blogging tools like WordPress and Blogger are free to set up, and if you enlist other team members to help with creating content, it can be quite efficient.

Blogs are Helpful
Trying to cut down on the number of support calls and emails your team has to field? Try answering some of the more common questions on a blog. People often turn to Google first when they have a question or problem, so providing relevant answers to frequently asked questions will help people before they even need to pick up the phone.