Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Before we visit the how to on blogging, here's a quick history. Blogging was started in the 1990s as a way for people to express thoughts, journals and hobbies online. It's been said self
expression is the main name of the blogging game. In 2013 blogging has evolved into
a major publishing medium. Not only for individuals but for companies to publish content and
share leadership thoughts online. Who blogs? Currently men blog more than women.
Most people use Word Press and Blogger to blog. There are estimated to be thirty one million
bloggers in the United States. Most
blogging websites do not make enough money to support a family. In fact eighty one percent of blogs
never make one hundred dollars. Only two percent of bloggers spend one to two hours blogging
and make over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars blogging from exotic locations. There are
forty two million blogs with twenty five billion pages viewed a month.
There are five hundred thousand new posts a day and four hundred thousand daily comments. Sixty percent of businesses have a business or
company blog. That's just a quick overview of how blogs are being used. So what do you think? Is a blog for you? Let's take a look at one
of the most popular blogging tools - blogger, and get you started by showing you how to post your first blog post. First you'll need a Google account.
Go to www.blogger.com. Clilck on get started and fill out the information to set up a Google account.
Once your account is created, blogger will walk you through the simple set up. Since I already have a blog I'm going to click on new blog
from the main page. Now I need to give the blog a name. Since we just got a new puppy, I'm going to create a blog called Tibetan Mastiffs.
which is the breed of our new puppy. I need to type in a name for the URL as well. This will need to be a unique
name that's not already being used. You will also choose a template design. As you can see there are many designs to choose from but don't worry, you can
always change the template design later. Now that I've set up a new blog, it's time to get started. As you can see, you can click on the
start blogging link or any of the options to the right. I like to click on the name of my blog, which takes me to an overview page where I can see everything
related to my blog. I can see my page views, click to see all of my
posts. I can click to see my
pages and comments and other things related to my blog, all of which you can discover later
but let's show you how to make your first blog post. Let's click on the new post button at the top. Now you are in
a basic text editor. At the top you have a tool bar with many functions, just like Microsoft Word or other text editors you may be familiar with.
What's neat about a blog is the ability to create links to other websites, add photos,
and even embed videos for people to view right on your blog post.
I'm going to go ahead and create a new post by adding text, a link and some images.
As you can see, I added a title - "New Puppy."
I added text and two images by clicking on the insert image
button. After adding the image you can justify it and
add captions by clicking on the image and selecting from the options displayed.
You'll notice I also added a link in the text by highlighting the text and clicking on the link
button. To preview my post, I simply click on the preview button
and voila, that's what my first blog post will look like.
Okay, I think I'm happy with my post so let's go ahead and post it on my blog. To post all I need to do
is click on the publish button at the top. Now we are back at the page showing all my posts.
In this case we see our first and only post
called new puppy.
To view your blog, simply click on the "View Blog" button at the top of the page.
And there you have it, your first blog post for others to see and comment on.
Feel free now to
set up your own blogger account and
explore all the cool features available
Who knows,
you may be the next
blogging sensation
to hit the
internet.
Thanks for watching.