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Updated Jan 18, 2012 @ 10:01 AM

Get your community blogs up and running in seven steps

By GHNewsroom.com

Since many GateHouse news organizations are working on recruiting community bloggers and setting up blogs, we've put together a quick list of blog posts, videos and other help materials and collected them here in seven steps.

Find a blogger. Need advice on how to recruit those bloggers? Here are some great ideas from the Messenger Post group in New York and the Peoria weekly group in Illinois. Need more advice? Check out four tips from GHNS editor Lisa Glowinski on how she recruited for the national blog network. We have also created house ads to use online and in print to help recruit bloggers.
Have your bloggers register on your website. To give your blogger a username and password to your site, have them go to this address and create one: http://www.devilslakejournal.com/users/registration. Replace "devilslakejournal.com" in the URL with your newspaper's web address.
Collect your blogger's info. Before you get your blogger set up on the community blogging network, you will need to get some basic information, like a photo of the blogger, bio information and the name of their blog. Click here to download a sheet you send out to your bloggers.
Request a blog. Use the information your blogger supplied to fill out this form. Once you submit, it will go to a News & Interactive staff member through Zendesk. Give us a week or so, and we will get back to you when your blog has been created.
Train your bloggers. Your bloggers will need to know everything about community blogs, from how many blog posts you expect from them per week, to how to upload a photo and add it to their blog. For help on creating a story and adding photos to the community blogs, send your bloggers this video and how-to information. You can also give your bloggers this blogger tip sheet with helpful guidelines. Need more best practices for bloggers? Here's our take on the success of Patriot Ledger business blogger Jon Chesto.
Start blogging. When your bloggers are ready to get going, they will go to this address to log in: http://www.devilslakejournal.com/!/manage. Replace "devilslakejournal.com" in this URL with your newspaper's web address. Their username and password will be the same one they set up in step two above.
Promote your bloggers. When you've gone to all the work of recruiting and setting up community bloggers, don't forget to promote them. You can find blogger promotion ads at this link. Need some creative inspiration? Here's a great carousel promotion idea from the Woodford Times.

And that's it. Need more assistance with community blogs? Contact Jean Hodges at jhodges@corp.gatehousemedia.com.