This week it is Intern Brett vs. Intern Scout as they create an instructional blog. Read on to learn more about instructional blogs. Then watch for our next Intern posts and vote for your favorite.
An instructional blog can range from just simple tips to a step by step tutorial.
How to Choose a Topic for an Instructional Blog:
– Choose a topic that people are interested in
– Best topics: something people didn’t know they COULD do
– Google the topic first to see if other tutorials already exist. Find a topic without any tutorials or very poor quality ones
WRITING
– State the objective (ie by the end of this post you will have ____)
– State anything/information they need at the beginning (like ingredients of recipe)
– Mention WHY they would want to do this (ie save time, better marketing, look cool, whatever)
– Number your steps (If someone is already in the process, clearly tell them if ___, then skip to Step #)
– Use Multimedia, screenshots or video are great
– Put in hyperlinks to make it easy for them to do each step as they are reading
– Put a “Other Resources” at the bottom and 3-5 links to related tools/blogs that might be helpful
REVIEW
– Give the blog to a friend with no experience and make sure they can complete the task or reach the end state
– At the end of the blog, ask for comments (“Let me know if I missed any steps,” “Let me know if this was helpful”, “post the link/picture of your completed ____ in the comments”
SHARE
– Tutorials are popular on content sharing sites
– Post to Delicious, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon
Blogging is fun, creative and a great way to gain new fans or customers. Watch for more info on how to write a better blog….and see what Brett and Scout create. Remember, retweet and “Like” your favorite.
Let the battle continue!
