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Extension 2.0: Harnessing the Power of the Blogosphere to
Expand Programming Potential & Impact
Jamie Seger, Kara Newby & Nancy Recker
The Ohio State University Extension
“Our job is not to defend yesterday, but to invent
tomorrow” -Peter Druker, Management Guru
Why Extension?
Lack of knowledge about Extension among younger generation (18-34 yo)
Why the Internet?
Blogging to Engage
From teaching to Engaging Many generations of clientele are online:
To socialize To learn
Possible Issues?
•Difficulty?
•Time/Task Management
•Communicating Impact
Creating Your Blog
What do you want from your blog?
Ease of Use: Google Blogger/Blogspot www.blogspot.com
Professional Appeal Wordpress www.wordpress.com
Finding & Reporting Impact
Where do I obtain statistical data? What kind of an impact is my blog having?
Finding & Reporting Impact
Options: Wordpress.com Statistics
For blogs hosted by Wordpress.com (free) Can retrieve blog hit information daily, weekly, or monthly
Top posts & pages Search traffic (i.e. if someone views your blog via a search result) Subscriber information (RSS feed, e-mail, etc) Referring sites
Move It Miami County dashboard Over 7,900 hits since the MIMC program in March. MIMC program ended second week in May. Blog averages approx. 70 hits per day.
Finding & Reporting Impact
Options (cont..): Google Analytics For use with a Blogspot blog – or – can embed into any
blog (with administrative access) Can retrieve daily, weekly, monthly, yearly stats
Traffic sources (referring sites, direct, search engines, etc) Top posts Traffic map (see who is visiting your blog nationally &
internationally!) Export data into a PDF or similar view
Family Blog
Finding & Reporting Impact
I have all of this data – now what do I do with it? Annual Reports Monthly Mini-Reports
List of new and updated posts (include “active” links) One or two helpful comments that were posted to the blog
from readers Overall statistics for that month
Group vs. Individual Blogging
Group Blogging Blogs that have contributors of two or more people OSUE FCS blog Pros:
Less amount of work for everyone in updating the blog Blog posts could represent a range of topics / authors could
focus on their area of specialization
Cons Blog may seem unorganized, less uniform, and not targeting
one specific niche May require more work: checking with other authors before
posting, etc.
Group vs. Individual Blogging
Individual Blogging Blogs that have one contributor/author Van Wert County Ag blog / Parents in Action blog Pros:
Blog can be more focused More of a “high-touch” blog (readers correspond with one
author – makes for an intimate experience)
Cons More work for one person
Group vs. Individual Blogging
Which format is best? Extension staff Extension clientele
Example in action: OSUE EERA blogs www.stepfamiliiestoday.wordpress.com www.osufcs.wordpress.com
Advertising Your Blog
Boost your impact by advertising your blog and posts
Microblogging:Facebook Fan Pages
• Creating a fan page• Inviting people to your page• Selecting a user name• Promoting your page to go virally• Value posting• Cross promotion• Getting others to connect to your page• Posting from your phone
Online Resources
Copy of this presentation Videos (How to blog, how to develop a podcast for
your blog, etc.) Links to other social media presentations
www.neafcs.org www.slideshare.net
Thank You!
Questions?
Please take a moment to fill out the session evaluation.
Contact Information: Jamie Seger - seger.23@osu.edu
twitter.com/jamies4families Kara Newby – knewby@ehe.osu.edu Nancy Recker – recker.22@osu.edu
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