POSTING UP: The “New Blog Post” button will take you to the form you need to write a new post.

Blog: Every Knowledge Network profile comes with an already-created “My Posts” blog. Your “My Posts” will show up on the blogs homepage under your name, with your profile picture, in the place where the name of the blog and the blog’s picture normally show up.

When you choose to write a new blog post, the form will default to your “My Posts.” Click on the arrow next to “My Posts,” and you’ll see a drop-down list of all the blogs you contribute to. If this drop-down option doesn’t appear, it means you are not a contributor to any blog, so until you are, all your posts will be in “My Posts.”

Title: Short, sweet, and to the point.

Summary: If your blog is formatted to summarize your posts on the home page, you can write a custom summary here to represent it. Otherwise, the first several lines of your post will be shown as the summary.

If you click on “Add a custom summary,” you will see two lines of text-formatting options. If you scroll your mouse over one of the images on those lines, it will show you the purpose of that option (such as Bold or Insert/edit link). This section is called the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor.

Post: This is where you enter the text of the post. See other In the Know posts “___” and “____” for guidelines and suggestions for blog content. There’s a WYSIWYG editor identical to the one in the Summary box here as well.

Photo: If there’s a photo that goes with the post, this is the place to add it. When you click on “Attach photo,” you’ll see options to add a caption, a credit for the copyright holder, and the holder’s URL. You can also add an ALT tag: a description of the photo that will help with Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Your photo will appear in the top right corner of your post.

Topics: Tag one or more Knowledge Network topics, but try to provide between three and five topic tags in order to optimize your audience. Stay tuned to In the Know for a post on how to get the most from topics and topic tags.

Other Tags: Similar to ALT tags, other tags help with SEO. If there’s a major theme in your post that isn’t a topic on the Knowledge Network, this is where you should add it.

If you have any questions about the basics of blogging, feel free to comment below! We encourage you to blog and want to help you get the most out of the Knowledge Network and your blogging experience.

Stay tuned to In the Know for more posts related to blogging, asking questions, and more on the Knowledge Network!

Maxwell Moline

ICMA Knowledge Network Intern 

mmoline@icma.org