Karine Joly’s blog is Collegewebeditor.com, a leading resource on higher education marketing in the age of new media. I recently asked her to share her thoughts on some ways to stay informed about new media.

-Dan Karleen

DK: What are some of the ways you stay informed about the latest developments in new media? Which tools or resources do you think might be helpful for those who want to learn about new media, but aren’t sure where to begin?

KJ: I live in my RSS reader. I’ve chosen Bloglines because it’s web-based and I can check my feeds on any of the three computers I use. I’m subscribed to about 150 news feeds (higher education, web design, marketing, search engine optimization, etc.) as well as a few keyword searches on Topix.net. When I have a bit more time, I also do keyword searches on Technorati.com or del.icio.us. If you want to learn more about new media, you should start to use RSS. Get a Bloglines account or download the RSS reader of your choice and start to subscribe to feeds and blogs. Don’t limit yourself to higher education, but check out what’s done in Corporate PR as well.

DK: Let’s say I have ten or fifteen minutes to spare, and I’m eager to learn more. What are two things I could do today that would help accelerate my understanding of the role of new media in Higher Education?

KJ: From the shameless self-promotion department, I would say that you should read my latest column in University Business: “The Brand (Brave?) New World Of Online Public Relations“. In this article, I tried to explain why it’s so important to learn more about the new media and provide a few good examples of what’s already done by some institutions. With the five minutes left, take the next step toward a better understanding of the role of new media in Higher Education: email me a quick note at karine@collegewebeditor.com to request a free Bloglines account already set up with a selection of the best higher ed RSS feeds available. If you already have an RSS reader, I’ll share the corresponding OPML file, so you can import these feeds at once.

DK: You publish both a blog (Collegewebeditor.com) and a column in a traditional a publication (University Business), and your work has helped inform many in Higher Education about the role of new media in PR and marketing. Now that many have been introduced, what do you believe are the keys to more widespread adoption of some of the tools of new media among Higher Ed PR and marketing professionals?

KJ: I think higher ed PR and marketing professionals need to get their hands dirty. They need to offer their press releases in RSS, set up Technorati watches to monitor conversations about their institutions and set up blogs to share their clips with their campus community. They need to understand that Web 2.0 doesn’t present the same technological barriers to access that Web 1.0 did. You don’t need to be an IT pro to publish a blog. That doesn’t mean you should do it solo without asking for help to set up or customize your blog. But, this means that you don’t need to invest dozens of hours to start posting. The beauty of Web 2.0 applications is that they are all created with the end-user in mind, a user who is supposed to read but also write the Web. In other words, you don’t need to be a geek, because new media is all about media, not technology. Last, I think PR and marketing professionals really need to embrace change, adapt their messages and add these new communication channels to their tool box.

Paul Baker is the blogger at EducationPR. I recently asked him to share a few thoughts about his experience in migrating from Blogger to WordPress and re-launching a newly branded blog with a fresh focus on tools and resources for those in education public relations and communications.

-Dan Karleen

DK: What prompted your decision to try a new blogging platform?

PB: Four things: functionality, content, design, and reputation.

I decided to begin blogging really recently – just last August. My original site site is here: http://wcer.blogspot.com.

I chose Blogger because I knew a few people who were using it, and because it’s free. It seemed fairly simple to set up and get started, and as a newbie I wasn’t ready to try anything really sophisticated. As time went on, the more I used it, the more I wanted to tweak it. You have to tweak it to create a Blogroll, and you can’t create categories for your posts. So after five months or so I began to feel limitations. That’s the functionality part.

In terms of content, after a few months of blogging I wanted to change direction, to refocus my content. My Blogspot blog began as a way to repurpose education-related content I had created for other media and as a way to reach new audiences, and point them to our corporate WCER web site, http://www.wcer.wisc.edu. But I began growing away from my original subject – education research – and posting more about my profession, public relations, and about cool new technologies available to communicators. I realized that was the direction I wanted to go, and so a new blog seemed appropriate.

As long as I was going to refocus content, I thought it would be appropriate to come up with a new name, a different design, and a new domain. Over the months I had added all kinds of buttons and other graphics to my Blogger site and had really cluttered up the page. I wanted to start over with a clean-looking design.

In terms of reputation: There are some fine bloggers using Blogger and there is some useful content on Blogger sites. But I learned that some of the blogs on that platform were shady — spam blogs and fake blogs — and that a professional blogger would want to avoid being associated with less desirable blogging practices might do well to choose another platform.

DK: Which platforms did you consider, and why? Why did you end up on Wordpress.com?

PB: While still learning my way around Blogger I read several reviews comparing the other major blogging tools including Moveable Type, Expression Engine, and the various flavors of TypePad, and Blogware. There’s a great comparison chart here: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/images/blog_software_comparison.cfm.

For a number of reasons I didn’t want to host my blog on a work server. I wanted a free, hosted service. It eventually narrowed down to a choice between TypePad and WordPress. I would probably be happy with either one. Maybe in time I’ll want to move up to the full-blown version of one or the other. But I’m not a heavy-duty blogger, just a few posts per week, and at this point don’t feel a need for all the bells and whistles.

DK: Did you have any specific goals in terms of migrating content from the old blog to the new one? How successful were you in reaching these goals?

PB: In terms of content, I did not migrate over the posts releated to education research. The blogroll and other links are pretty much the same, though, and I retained the posts releated to technology and public relations.

In terms of logistics, I was really pleased at how easy WordPress makes it to migrate from Blogger. You basically push a button and WordPress sucks everything in. The formatting and links came through just fine. I don’t think I had a single problem with it. Then it was just a matter of assigning categories to the old posts, and setting up my blog roll.

DK: How did you help your readers find your new blog?

PB: On the day I “threw the switch,” I posted about it on the Blogger blog, provided a link to the new WordPress site and the URL for the new RSS feed. So anyone who subscribed to my RSS feed got the announcement in their feedreader.

I also sent the new WordPress URL to the major blog indexing services. I mention the WordPress site occasionally in the podcast that I do, and in a monthly electronic newsletter I edit.

Although the Blogger site is officially archived, I’m happy to see that it still gets visits, so I hope some people are finding the content there useful.

It will take a while for the WordPress site to get as much traffic as the Blogger site once did. I just need to keep posting new content and linking to more useful things.

DK: What do you like or dislike about Wordpress.com so far?

PB: The user interface is clean, the templates are professional-looking. It’s easy to post and create categories. I like the Dashboard, I like the stats reports, and it’s easy to add and manage links and the blogroll. There are special editors for the sidebar and for the header design. There are several features I have yet to take advantage of.

DK: Now that you have run blogs on two platforms, what would you recommend to Higher Education PR professionals who are considering launching a blog or moving their blog to a new platform?

PB: Talk to your friends who are blogging. That’s the best piece of advice I can think of. Then maybe borrow one of the many “how to blog” books available.

Ask yourself why you want to blog. Do you want to blog for a strategic communication reason? Or is it to learn how blogging is done on a technical level? Or do you just want to become a more informed consumer information you find in the blog world? These are all perfectly good reasons. Then jump in with both feet, learn as you go along.

I have to say blogging has been really enjoyable and that I’ve contacted some great new people.