Marketing Monday: Enhancing Blog Posts 101

Welcome to Marketing Monday, a series hosted by the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries Marketing and Communications team. Hang out with us on the third Monday of every month as we chat about the ins and outs of what we do, and hack into our years of expertise in laidback sessions exploring your most pressing questions.

This month, we will talk about adding images and files to a blog post; advanced tagging and pushing to social media; and the top 10 blog posts as of September 2020.

When creating an engaging blog post, you want to consider the visual aspect of your content. Adding images and even relevant files to your blog post will keep readers on the page and bring them back to our blog.

To add an image to your blog post:

1. Select Add Image from the list of block options
2. Access the Media Library or Media Add Page
3. Insert your image by name
4. Add a caption that is relevant to your image
5. Add a link when appropriate
6. Adjust the width to fit your content

You can also add images in a multi-column layout or carousel when appropriate.

To add a file to blog post:

1. Select Add File Upload from the list of block options
2. Access the Media Library or Media Add Page
3. Insert your file by name

The two best ways to elevate your blogging profile is with advanced tagging and leveraging your presence on social media.

When tagging your post, you want to keep the tags relevant to your content. Readers looking for posts on pasta recipes don’t want to stumble onto your post about pasta literacies (as a ridiculous example). Research your areas of study and determine which tags are used by your peers to navigate your content.

In that vein, you also want to tag your content with timely, trending tags when appropriate. If your post speaks to a contemporary issue, such as this great post about textbook sourcing during the pandemic, then using trending tags can help readers find what you and your institution has to say about an important issue.

Networking on social media is more important than ever, and making connections with peers in your area of study is generally recommended as you continue your career. When you have posted to the Libraries blog, a way to increase the visibility of that post is to share the link to your social channels. Your network wants to know what you have to say, and so pushing your blog posts to these platforms is the perfect opportunity to let them know what you think about any given topic.

Doing this not only helps you build a community around your area of interest – it gives you another opportunity to look for popular tags to share your work with a broader audience, increasing your impact and spreading your work outside your established circle.

The top ten posts as of September 2020 represent a wide range of authors, departments, topics, and post structures.

1. #vizoftheweek 8: Harder Than I Thought - Tracking the Spread of Coronavirus, 3/18/20
2. An Open Letter from Dean Rebecca Bichel on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at UTA Libraries, 7/28/20
3. Fun with Green Screens: Liven up your Content, 1/13/20
4. #vizoftheweek 3: What It's Like - Bed Rest, 2/3/20
5. Stuck Between a Rock and a Publisher: Impacting Affordability During a Pandemic, 8/10/20
6. The Lee R. Greenhouse and Flora E. Lazar Map Donation (Part One), 7/2/20
7. Mapping with Datawrapper: Texas UFO Sightings Map, 3/25/20
8. Textbook Hero Video Series: Episode Three, 10/20/17
9. #vizoftheweek 4: UTA Has a Team That Will Help You Graduate, 2/10/20
10. Experiential Learning In The Libraries, 9/27/18

Thanks for joining us for this month's Marketing Monday! Join us in October for "Marketing: IT'S ALIIIIIVE!" — a look at the ways Marketing lives in all departments of an academic library.