Using Your WordCamp Blog to Generate Interest All Year Long
By Lorelle VanFossen, posted September 6, 2008 at 5:22 am | 1 Comment ยป
Charlotte WordCamp is off on the right track with an exciting WordCamp and WordPress blog. They’ve set up a WordCamp Charlotte Twitter account and started blogging the details of the November 15, 2008, event, and started contributing to the WordPress Community and fans with WordPress articles and tips.
A WordCamp blog isn’t just about the annual regional event. It’s a year ’round commitment to keep the WordPress fan club energy going. It helps energize local WordPress fans and publicize the event, but it also helps keep the enthusiasm going long after the event, building towards the next WordCamp.
To all WordCamp planners and volunteers, I recommend that you make your local WordCamp event be the climax of each year, but that you also create regularly scheduled meetups for all involved to build upon what you’ve started. The blog is a focal point for the annual WordCamp and for social gatherings.
Here are some examples of how a WordCamp blog can be useful and productive all year long.
- Recruit Multiple Bloggers: Don’t let just one person carry the weight. Open up contributions to multiple bloggers and WordPress fans to share their WordCamp experiences, tips, and news.
- Support Area Blogging Events: Don’t stop at only WordPress related events. WordPress is about blogging and social media, so cover other area events that would be of interest to your members.
- Offer WordPress Tips and Tricks: You have WordPress experts and fans all around you. Tap their expertise and get them to blog about their WordPress knowledge, tips, tricks, and how they use WordPress.
- Support All WordPress Events: Blog about other WordPress events and news. If one of your members is attending a WordCamp or WordPress meetup, have them blog about the event. Promote other WordCamp and WordPress events to help spread the word.
- Who Are You?: Interview each other. Tell the world about who your WordPress Community members really are. What skills do they have? Why do they blog? Why do they use WordPress? How do they use WordPress? Help promote those in your area and get to know them better.
- Hold a Contest or Challenge: Why not energize your community by holding a competition or challenge. Maybe have the winner(s) get free t-shirts or entrance to WordCamp? Or a night in a hotel near the WordCamp event. Or just for the fun of participation? Why not raise money for a local charity as was done with the recent WordPress Charity Scavenger Hunt. These can be done throughout the year, not just during the WordCamp event.
- Experiment with WordPress: You’ve got a WordPress blog, why not use it to push WordPress limits, or to expand your own? Experiment with video by recording some instructional videos on using WordPress. Play with screencasts to record WordPress techniques. Why not get a few of your WordPress fans together and do a podcast talking about blogging in your area and how WordPress plays a part.
There are a ton of things you can do with your WordCamp blog to keep it active all year long. I’ve just skimmed the list. What would you like to see on a WordCamp blog in your area?
My best piece of advice fits in with your point number seven. I think experimenting is a great way to keep everything fresh and exciting.