We in the Outreach Team at Greenpeace have launched a competition to encourage our active supporters (volunteers in local groups/networks) to get blogging and to do it well.
So each month, we're reading all new blogs, making a long list, cutting it down to a shortlist and then picking our winners. Winning blogs will be announced in Network Co-ordinators News, our monthly newsletter for the people who co-ordinate our local groups/networks. They will also be posted on the Greenpeace homepage. At the end of the year, we'll give you the chance to vote for your favourite of that year's winning blogs. The yearly winner will receive some kind of prize (yet to be decided upon). NB we write the newsletter a week or so before the end of each month, so the competition will run from and to approximately 25th of each month.
What's the criteria for a winning blog?
We've come up with some tips about content and visuals:
- Use a good title
- Use a good (landscape) image
- Write like you're talking to a friend
- Less is more - 300 words is plenty. More than 400 and you'll start to lose people before they even start reading
- Don't go into too much campaign depth or use impenetrable jargon
- Don’t use all capitals
- Don’t use all bold
- Break it up visually by using paragraphs and subheadings - this makes it much easier to read
- Link to other things e.g. if you refer to the Shard, link to one of our articles/blogs about it
- If possible, ask someone to proofread it
- Include a call to action/something people can do at the end
- Include videos if you have them
- Share share share! (via Facebook, Twitter and email etc)
This list is not exhaustive - if you have some top blogging tips, please add them as a comment below.
How can I get involved?
If you would like to write a blog and enter the competition, please get in touch with the co-ordinator of your local group/network and ask them to give you blogging permissions on the local webgroup.
If they're not sure how to do this or if there is no local network near you, please email Rachael and we'll sort out your permissions.
Thanks and happy blogging!
Comments