Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) offered some blog tips for fellow Democrats on her website. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) noticed Pelosi's Blogging 101 and quickly blogged that five of the seven blogs Pelosi recommended as examples were Republican blogs. Raw Story has an article on the tips that includes some funny back and forth between spokespersons for Pelosi and Kington. Raw Story also listed one of Pelosi's tips -- "blog often" -- which is a good tip and something experienced bloggers do.
Among her blog tips: "The most important thing is to blog often. Posts do not need to be extensive or long. It can be as simple as, 'I found this article on the budget in the Washington Post today very interesting. Click here to read.'"
The likely reason why Pelosi's blog page linked to so many Republican blogs is because few House Democrats were blogging at the time.
The tips, formerly here, have since been removed from the Democratic leader's website.
The blog tips have since been removed from Pelosi's website. The old link can be found here in case it reappears later. Rep. Kingston has posted a PDF of Pelosi's tips on his site. Here are a couple other useful tips from the Blogging 101:
Blog content
There are several blogs such as Daily Kos or Huffington Post that your member can blog on. All you need to do is set up an account (free) and post content. There are other sites that have guest bloggers and do interviews such as TPM Cafe and Raw Story. Blog content needs to be original and have personal voice...posting a press release will not go over well.
Tough skin
Many members are concerned that when they post on an existing blog they will receive comments that they are not in control of. The long and the short of it is, they're right. It's part of the community and you can't worry about it.
A tough skin is definitely required if you want to enter the political blogosphere.
