By Russell S. Powell

When campus marketing officers talk about social networking, most of the conversation tends to focus on how to employ Facebook or YouTube. The less-than-poetic-sounding "Web log" typically gets overlooked. Yet blogs can be the very vehicle public-relations officers are seeking to take advantage of social-networking sites.

Make no mistake: A good blog requires a lot of planning, hard work, and research. It must be well written by someone who has mastered the form. But a blog can draw attention to something you're trying to promote with greater ease, and more depth, than a press release.

Facebook has marketers drooling over its merchandising potential, and it may have particular utility in higher education in recruitment or as a way to enhance alumni-relations programs. But that potential comes with a huge proviso: If the institutional footprint on Facebook becomes too heavy—and I include all businesses and industries, not just colleges and universities—then that site will be abandoned for something cooler and less commercial.

A blog can be an effective way to bridge the space between product and consumer via entertaining and educational content. Colleges can use blogs to communicate the values and ideas that define their programs, so long as the end user is kept in mind—whether that means 17-year-olds beginning their senior year in high school, journalists looking for interesting stories, or aging donors who can no longer make the trip to the campus.

Aside from their ill-chosen name, blogs have been ignored by campus PR in part because many are overly personal, informal, or frivolous. They don't need to be. A well-written and illustrated blog can add to a reader's understanding of a serious topic and, at the same time, promote an institution's marketing messages. A blog is a passive marketing tool, accessible to anyone visiting your Web site. But you can use e-mail and Facebook to promote the blog to prospective students, alumni, or reporters.

The key is to make blog posts interesting and timely—not as easy as it sounds. Just because you can write a good press release for the local weekly, or a feature story for the alumni magazine, does not mean you will easily make the transition to blog writing. And even if you are comfortable with the format, there are internal hurdles to clear before you can begin an institutional blog. Chances are, the leadership on your campus will need to be educated about how this very new, and very public, addition to the marketing mix can benefit the institution.

But if you can conquer those challenges, a blog is a dynamic tool for circulating your institution's messages among the people you most want to see them.

I currently write and produce three blogs with a WordPress account, one for a community road race I organize, one for a nonprofit representing New England's apple growers, and one for personal essays and reflections. I will soon begin a fourth blog, for my consulting business.

As soon as I publish a post, it is automatically added to my Facebook wall, complete with a thumbnail image. I can set up the distribution so that each post also goes to Twitter or to my entire e-mail list, but I prefer not to blast every message to everyone, given my range of subject matter. I supplement the Facebook post with e-mail messages to people who are not on Facebook but may be interested in the topic of the latest blog post. I simply use the blog title as the subject of the e-mail message and repeat it as a hyperlink in the body.

In that way, even someone like me, with a relatively small group of contacts and friends, compared with a college or university, reaches more than 1,000 readers with each post. Those are not just any readers, either. They are qualified by the fact that they have already identified themselves as potentially interested in what I have to say.

WordPress captures the number of views each post gets, and I hear anecdotally that some of my posts are printed and shared with others. True, the hits are still relatively small, but they're growing. The headline, opening lines, and image that announce each post, meanwhile, are viewed by anyone reading his or her Facebook home page. I get comments from readers with almost every post, which is an attractive, interactive feature of a blog, especially for colleges trying to connect with potential students, employees, and alumni.

With fewer print outlets available (and fewer higher-education reporters at most newspapers), the blog is a means to circumvent the traditional news media. A blog can reach your target audience without the intervention of an editor or reporter. You alone determine what gets printed, what it looks like, and to whom it is distributed.

Blogging remains a new medium, and after seven months I am still learning. I have not felt ready yet to start an institutional blog at Elms College, and now that I am leaving the institution to do consulting work, my successor will have to pursue that idea. But in addition to gaining experience at writing a blog, I have interviewed faculty and staff members on the subject. Here are some of the practices I recommend:

Start writing now. Blog writing has its own rules and tendencies. The best way to become familiar with them is to start writing. If your goal is to start a blog for your college or university, get some practical experience first by starting a personal blog. You can do it easily, and for free, using programs like Google's Blogger, or WordPress. I prefer the latter, as I have found it gives me greater flexibility, is easier for readers to make comments, and has easily retrieved statistics. But either one is easy to use.

Don't worry about the number of readers initially; just get writing. Read other people's blogs as well to see what's out there and how other writers approach the task.

Begin by choosing a name and a look for your blog from among a number of available templates. I draft my posts in Word and paste them in, but you can compose directly in the blog program as well. Images are easy to upload, and you can add video or hyperlinks with the click of a button.

Don't forget the artwork. Whether a reader gets to your post through e-mail, Facebook, or your Web site, a visual element is a key ingredient to stimulate and maintain interest. In that respect, a blog is like any other publication.

Three elements working in tandem—headline, lead sentence, and image—will determine whether readers decide to keep reading the post. More than most forms of writing, with blogs you have a brief opportunity to get and keep someone's attention.

Be selective. If you start to use a blog to promote every event on your campus, it will soon lose its luster. Reserve it for major events, or unusual ones. When you use the blog for that purpose, details about the event itself should be secondary. Always begin with your strongest content; if the event is a speaker, for instance, use the post to emphasize his or her background, not simply that the college is hosting the event.

What are some good subjects for an institutional blog post? A faculty member's new book or research breakthrough, obviously. An issue of public concern, such as the H1N1 virus. A current event, such as the oil spill off the Louisiana coast or the struggling economy. A reading by a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

The key in choosing what to write about is to always remember the end user, who typically ignores dozens of Facebook messages every day, only pursuing ones that are of genuine interest.

Post regularly. You don't have to keep an exact schedule, but come out with new posts every other week, if possible. If you are trying to make the case for an institutional blog, produce half a dozen posts in advance, and have another half-dozen ideas ready to present to your boss or president.

Once you begin your blog, it is important to keep fresh material in front of your audience. But don't get carried away—people don't want to hear from you too often. The blog may be an add-on to your traditional tasks, too, so don't overburden yourself with unrealistic expectations. New posts once or twice a month is manageable, and plenty for most of your audience.

Keep it short. The standard opinion column in a newspaper is about 800 words; for a blog post, think about half of that. The ideal length should be 300 to 500 words. Getting across a complex idea in that limited space is a challenge for most writers (me included), but, as a rule, fewer words mean more readers.

Don't rely on others to write the blog. It is tempting to think that you can use your institutional blog to showcase faculty members by having them write about their areas of expertise. That won't work, however, except in rare instances. There are a host of reasons why, beginning with the fact that most professors are even less familiar with the medium than you are. Second, academics are not known for brevity in their writing.

Then there is the logistical nightmare of getting faculty members to post on time. They simply have too much to do as it is, teaching, advising, and doing research. The college blog is not likely to be seen as a priority for them. Even if it is, some faculty members will expect additional compensation to contribute. If you don't have the money to pay them, that can be a deal-breaker.

Accept the fact that, as the public-relations officer, you will end up doing most of the writing and editing for the blog.

Include hyperlinks. One way to supplement a short blog entry is with links to additional information. If the blog is well written, it can result in many click-throughs from readers interested in learning more about the subject, whether it is an academic discipline, faculty member, or special event.

Rarely will your blog take off overnight. So be patient. Whatever the future of social networking, the lessons you learn from producing a blog will be durable, and applicable. Good writing, in any form, is always in demand.

Russell S. Powell is a former public-relations officer at Elms College, in Chicopee, Mass. He recently left the position to work as a consultant in writing and marketing. He previously worked as director of public relations at Hampshire College and at Greenfield Community College. If you work in campus public relations and would like to write for On Message, send your ideas to careers@chronicle.com.