Using This Site

admin — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 01:08:16 -0500

(Editor's note: New! On Feb. 18, BlogHer.com began launching new social networking tools. We'd love to know what you think -- more below. Thanks)

Welcome to BlogHer, the blogging community for women! We invite you to join us to gain additional exposure for your blogs and your ideas (that's our mission) -- and you can even start your first blog here with us if you like. With more than 38,000 members and 18,000 blogs on our blog list, we're all working together to create a community that is fun, informative and supportive.

Here are 11 16 ways to jump-start your BlogHer.com experience :

Register
List Your Blog
NEW! Create a Custom Profile
Read and Talk Back
NEW! Save and Surf Favorites
NEW! Chatter!
NEW! Customize your My BlogHer page
New! Member Search
NEW! Private Messaging
Blog on BlogHer.com
New! Join & Create BlogHer Groups
Subscribe to Newsletters and RSS
Surf the Blog Directory
Share Your Photos
Search Network Blogs
BlogHer Buttons & Badges

1) Register: When you register, you'll be able to list your blog, create your own BlogHer blog, and interact with contributing editors and community members.

2) List your blog: After you've registered, you'll want to list your blog(s) so it will appear in the BlogHer blog directory. Click the blue "Create a Post" button under the search button and click "List a Blog". Make sure to select topic(s) that your blog is really about. Once our editors review it, (hey, we have to be careful, we don't want to build SpamHer), your blog will appear in the "blogs" tag within the topic(s) you selected. (NOTE: If BlogHer's editors feel you've misfiled your blog, we'll change it.)

3) Create a profile and Introduce yourself: Now that you've registered and you've listed your blog(s), the next step is to create a profile. Click the "Settings" button in the My BlogHer Menu. You'll be taken to your administration area, click one of the you'll see four links, "Account Settings", "BlogHer Conference Attendance", "Public Profile", "User Data". Fill out each section of your account. Pay particular attention to each section of your "Public Profile" since that's the profile that will be visible when people click your member name on BlogHer.com. Features of the new custom profiles include:

1) The ability to select which modules of your profile are viewable by the public, by your friends, or only by you. (You find this menu in the Public Profile --> My BlogHer Settings.)

2) The ability to add many different modules to your profile that show all of the content you create on BlogHer.com. (Favorites, My BlogHer, My Chatter, Blog posts on BlogHer, Recent Comments on BlogHer etc...)

3) Your friends, people you follow, people who follow you.

4) You can add the RSS feed for up to 10 social networks/blogs that you participate in.

(NOTE: Make sure to check your privacy settings for each piece of content visible on the Public Profile. Public means public and anyone can see the personal information that you have entered. If there is something that you want to remain private, you must mark it "only to me" in your "My BlogHer Settings" within the Public Profile admin menu..) Sorry to YELL, but it's so important that you know how to protect your privacy on BlogHer.com.

Here are step by step instructions for public profiles.

Now it's time to introduce yourself in the forums. (The link to find the forums is at the bottom of every BlogHer page.) Don't forget to include your blog in your post or in your signature. (FYI: There's a signature block feature within your account settings page. If you missed it, click "My Account" under the search box and scroll down to "signature". HTML is accepted in this box so you can pretty your signature up, if you like. )

4) Read blogs and talk back:

You can surf BlogHer blog content by checking out the home page or by clicking "All Topics" in the horizontal menu at the top of the page to expand our topics menu. The default page brings you blog posts written by BlogHer's Contributing Editors (often referred to as "CEs".) You'll notice links at the top of those pages - one for the "editor posts" and one that says "all posts" where you can find blog entries written by both BlogHer CEs and BlogHer community members. If you're interested in which posts have been read most often, look at the "Most Read" box.

We want to know what you think about the blog posts that you're reading, so please comment often. We provide comment notification via email on BlogHer to help encourage discussion within the comments.

5) New! Favorites:
We've added a tiny star next to the title of all of the content on BlogHer.com. If you click the star, you'll be able to save that content on your "Favorites" page. When you do this, you'll be able to add tags to help you better organize your favorite content.

(If you don't want anyone to know that you've favorited something, be sure to click the "make private" box when you're favoriting the content.)

All of the content that is marked as a "favorite" will be available to view by logging into BlogHer and clicking "Favorites" in the My BlogHer drop down menu. The Favorites page can be sorted to view specific content types as well as just your favorites, or the favorites of just your friends or just those you're following.

When you're looking at the Favorites page, you can click the underlined tags to see more content that has been favorited using that tag. If you see a number next to favorited content, this means more than one person has favorited this. Click the number to find out who those people are.

[image will be added here to show icons/tags/etc.]

6) NEW! Chatter:
Give our new public messaging tool a try. Chatter allows you to send a 140 character message into the BlogHer Chatter stream. You can tell us what you're doing, ask a question, or just chatter... and of course you can reply to other BlogHer Chatters.

7) NEW! Customize your My BlogHer page

Visit My BlogHer and see links to all of the most recent BlogHer content. What makes this "My BlogHer" is that you can sort the stream to display only blog posts if that's what you want to see. You can see just forum posts if you prefer. You can also view content created only by people you follow. (To follow BlogHer members (and their content) click the "following" button on a BlogHer member profile and choose the content you want to follow.)

8) Member Search:
You can use the Member Search or Advanced Member Search to find bloggers who share your interests or have attended BlogHer Conferences that you have attended. Search by name, blog name, email address, tag or BlogHer Con attendance.

9) Join & Create BlogHer Groups:
The Groups landing page is found within the My BlogHer menu. You can search for existing groups, by topic or tag. You can quickly move to groups you have created or joined, find featured groups and newly created groups. (click for screenshot)

Click the name of the group to move to its landing page. If you are not a member of the group (or a member who is not logged in) you will not be able to see all of the group content. Click the Join Group button in order to access more content. (click for screenshot of what a group looks like once you've joined.)

Some groups may have membership moderated. This means that your request to join the group will be sent to the group owner for approval.

If you don't find a group you want to join, feel free to create a group of your own! Here's the FAQ for creating a group.

10) Send private messages on BlogHer:
Now you can send private messages to other members of the BlogHer community (and accept them, too.) You determine your level of privacy: accept messages from everyone, people you're following who are following you, your friends, or nobody at all. You can also choose whether to receive these messages in your personal email, your BlogHer inbox, or both.

You can find the inbox settings within the Public Profile admin area.

11) Start blogging on BlogHer: Look at that search box again and click the blue button that says "Create a Post". On the next menu, select "Blog Entry" and start blogging! (Here's a link that provides tips for using the rich text editor, launched on 3/27/8.) Make sure to choose the appropriate topic in the drop down menu (for multiple topic selection, hold down the CTRL key and highlight additional topics as needed.)

When you publish your blog post, you'll be able to find it on the front page immediately, in the "All posts" link under the "Most Recent" box. You'll also find it in the "All posts" link in the topic area(s) you selected. A link to your BlogHer blog will be included at the bottom of every post you write.

12) Subscribe: You can subscribe to newsletters that will allow you to keep your finger on the pulse of what women bloggers are thinking and doing. If newsletters aren't your thing, we have RSS feeds for every area of BlogHer - from the front page to the forums. Just look for the little orange RSS icon.

13) Go surfing: Click Blog Directory in the top, horizontal navigation bar and you'll have thousands of fabulous blogs written by women at your fingertips. You can start surfing by topic or by alphabetical listing.

14) Share your photos:

The brand new photo header at the top of our page is driven by photos from the community and we'd love to include yours. We're looking for photos that show what BlogHer's community is up to -- yes BlogHer events, but also your life and events. Join the BlogHer Header Group on Flickr and share your photos with the group. Our editors will select new ones to feature several times a week.

15) Search the network:
We've made it easier to surf (and search) our publishing network for great blog content, by vertical. The BlogHer search widgets can be also be added to the sidebar of your blog to make surfing (and searching) even easier.

16) Add a button to your blog:
Over the last two years, this has been the question most often asked by members of the community..."Is there a button or a badge that I can add to my blog?" Yes, yes there is. BlogHer buttons are available. BlogHer Conference badges are also available

Thanks for reading. We’d love to know what you think of BlogHer.com and how you’d like to be able to use it. Please come tell us in our forum, Using this site. Additional information about BlogHer and the BlogHer website can also be found in our FAQs. Contact Us with questions or to provide feedback.

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Using This Site