More questions about blogs -

In a recent association list serve post someone asked about hiring a ghost-writer to write blog postings and how to increase user-generated content from members.  Great questions. 

When we're helping an association create a web strategy, blogs and user generated content (e.g, wiki or discussion content) are always part of the strategy.  The list serve questions get to the heart of what every association needs to consider before launching a blog or providing a forum for users to generate content - what is the purpose of the blog?, how will success be measured?, and what do users care passionately enough about to generate content? These are just a few of the questions that need to be considered, but they are very important ones.  Are you launching a blog because 'everyone else has' or are there specific goals and a particular purpose for your blog?  Who will write the postings?  Does the writer understand the commitment they are making?  Do they understand the difference between writing web content and writing blog postings?  Do you expect comments from readers?  Do you approve comments before they post on the blog site?  Etc... the list of blog-related questions goes on.  Also, what about user generated content?  What do your associations members care passionately enough about to take time to generate content around that topic?  Is your membership's culture conducive to user generated content?  If you're success criteria includes user participation and you don’t' see much - are you going to discontinue the online tool/blog? If so when?  If not, why not?  What's Plan B?  Again, these are a few of the questions you need to ask before going on an online adventure.