A day at the Social Media Exchange – 3

I’m at the third masterclass of the day and it’s not even lunchtime!

Dave Briggs is running this session on “WordPress for good”

WordPress is an open source blogging platform -

• open source means that it’s “free as in beer and free as in speech”
• it produces rss feeds as a standard – helps people to keep in touch with what you are saying
• WordPress has in built commenting facility and loads of other cool tools

Before setting up your WordPress account, you need to decide if you want it to be .com or .org? – .com is a bit limited in what it can do and how it can be personalised

Some examples of typically bloggy type blogs

• http://wp4g.wordpress.com
• http://davepress.net
• http://blogs.dfid.gov.uk – Department for International Development, blogging about their experiences
• http://matthewtaylorsblog.com

And some not quite bloggy blogs

• http://socialmediaexchange.org.uk
• http://lowcarboncommunities.net
• www.walesoffice.gov.uk
• www.number10.gov.uk

What else can you do with WordPress?

• You can categorise your posts as “news” or by project to make it more like a regular website.
• Plug ins add cool stuff to WordPress blogs.
• WordPress can be easily themed around corporate colours, type faces etc.

http://www.wordpressforgood.com has some useful resources for setting up your WordPress blog.

… so, lunch! …