CyberMummy is getting closer and we need some folks to officially live-blog from the sessions. You would be writing about the session as it happens, providing a real-time record. We're looking for volunteers for these sessions:
Live blogger 1: Content session
Live blogger 2: Influence and Stats session
Live blogger 3: Working with Sponsors session
Live blogger 4: Libel & Design CyberLabs
Live blogger 5: SEO & Book-to-Blog CyberLabs
You publish the post onto your own blog then we'll link to it from the official CyberMummy blog.
Interested? Email Susanna at AModernMother (at) gmail (dot) com.
Not sure what live blogging really involves and how to do it? Check out the guide below, graciously submitted by Jessica Rosenberg, an expert live-blogger who has done it for BlogHer, among others.
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A live-blogging guide by a real live blogger
The first event I live-blogged was a football game. American football. I grew up in France, know nothing about football, and was woefully unprepared for what was going on. I sat there, Idiot’s Guide to Football in hand, and tried to follow along, blogging my thoughts on the game every few moments.
I can guarantee that my thoughts had precious little to do with the actual tactics or fine points of the game. They might have had a lot to do with surprising properties of certain uniforms.
While I didn’t learn much about the game, I did pick up some live-blogging tips that served me well when I had my first official live-blogger gig at BlogHer in 2008. I took notes, you know, in case the uniforms had the unexpected effect of causing me to be so distracted that I forgot.
1. Name your post and type a short paragraph explaining that you’re live-blogging, what you’re live-blogging, and that you’ll come back after the fact to clean up your spelling, grammar, and cohesion.
2. #1 can be done ahead of time and saved as a draft. In case of live-blogging for conferences, I’ve often found it helpful to paste the blurb about the session and to hyperlink the names/sites of the speakers ahead of time. Saves precious time later.)
3. Select all. COPY. Save. Publish.
4. Open a blank Word (or equivalent) document and “paste” what you have “copied.” (Save this document to your desktop. This will allow your computer to auto-save.)
5. Go back to your web browser, click “Edit blog post” and add the next paragraph.
6. Repeat #3.
7. Repeat #4, #5, and #6 until session or event is over.
8. It’s probably a good idea to decide ahead of time if you’re going to post every X minutes or when you feel there’s a clean break in the action.
9. Trust me when I say you should NEVER forget to “select all and copy” before you hit either save or publish. Ask me how I know this. Or rather don’t. I don’t think I can relive it.
10. When the session or event is over, take a minute to go back into your post to clean up grammar, spelling, and typos. Read over what you’ve written to see if you can make sense of what you wrote. Edit for clarity and flow. Once you’re happy with the way the post reads, delete the apologetic intro paragraph and save the post one final time.
Despite the stress of sometimes playing “Where’d the wifi network go?” live-blogging is a really fun way to share a conference or event with your readers. It’s fun to let them see what’s going on through your eyes and in your words. You know, as long as you remember to copy what you write before you post.
Jessica Rosenberg is an aspiring novelist and freelance who blogs almost daily at It's My Life... and posts frequent(ish) reviews at The Lemonade Stand. Join her Facebook fan page to follow her journey to becoming a published author! You can also follow her mad tweets at http://www.twitter.com/kikarose.
