Welcome to Gingerbread s campaign blog! We re so pleased to have you blogging with us. This document will help you get set up on the blog so you can upload posts, understand how the moderating process works and give you some ideas of how to share your blog posts with the world! Contents: Setting up your contributor profile on the blog Uploading your blog post What happens when your post gets moderated Promoting your blog posts www.gingerbreadcampaigns.wordpress.com 1
Setting up your contributor profile on the blog To contribute to the blog and be able to upload posts, you ll first need to set up a contributor profile for yourself on the blog. This will mean you re able to upload posts. We ll send you an email to invite you to become a contributor. The first thing you need to do is sign up to get a WordPress account. If you already have a blog with WordPress, you will already be registered so can just click on the button that says Accept Invitation. If you don t have an account with WordPress, follow these steps: 1. Click on the link to sign up for a WordPress account in the email. You ll get taken to this screen in your internet browser: 2. Sign in with your email address and then choose a username and password. Your username will be your blogger name so choose something that sums you up perhaps your first name and last initial or a nickname like accountantkate. 3. Remember to keep a note of your password! 4. You should then receive an email from WordPress.com to say that you have been added as a user and that you need to activate your account. Click on the activate account like to do this. 2
5. Go back to our original email inviting you to become a contributor to the blog. Click on the Accept Invitation link you re now a contributor! You ll receive another email letting you know you ve been added to the blog. Uploading your blog post Go to www.wordpress.com and login using the email address and password you registered with when we asked you to join the Gingerbread campaigns blog. Then go straight to https://gingerbreadmakeitwork.wordpress.com/ - please add this address to your bookmarks! NOTE: If you don t go to this page after logging in, you may end up uploading your blog to your own personal account rather than to the site. 3
To upload a new blog post, click on the little pencil symbol in the top right hand corner of the page: You should then be presented with this page: 4
To upload your blog post, you just need to copy and paste your blog into the text box, add your title and any photos you want to include. To add photos, click on Add Media. Once you re through to the Add Media page, click on the button that says Upload Files. Once your picture has uploaded, click Insert in the bottom right hand corner of the screen and it should be added to your blog. To see what it will look live once it s published, click on Preview in the bottom left. The preview will come up as a pop-up, so make sure you are allowing pop-ups from WordPress on your computer (you should be prompted to allow or disable pop-ups). If you re happy with your post and are ready to submit it for approval, click Publish to Gingerbread s campaign blog. If you want to save it and come back to it later, click Save Once you have published your post, it will come to Gingerbread to be moderated. After we have read and approved your post, it will go live on the blog. This can take up to 3 days but will usually be quicker. What happens when your post gets moderated Gingerbread will check all the blog posts, and in some cases very lightly edit them before they go live to make sure there s nothing unsuitable or offensive in them but the blog is very much your space to say what you want. Here are a few guidelines to let you know how we might edit your post: 1. Length If your post is very long, we might shorten it up slightly. We will contact you if this would mean significantly changing your post. 2. Spelling and grammar We ll do a quick scan for spelling and grammar errors and will correct these before your post goes live just think of us as your very own proofreading service! 3. Privacy This blog is your blog, and a place to talk about positive and negative experiences. As a general rule, you should think carefully before making remarks about a specific person, company or organisation that could be easily identified in your blog post, either because you ve used their name or details that make it obvious who they are. If we feel there is something in your blog post that might unfairly damage your, our or another person s or organisation s reputation, we may remove these names and identifying characteristics. 5
Promoting your blog posts We hope you ll want to share your blog posts with as many people as possible! Here are few ways you might like to promote your blogs: On Facebook Share your posts on your Facebook page and encourage your friends to take a look. You can tag Gingerbread in your posts by writing @Gingerbread. On Twitter Tweet a link to your blog posts! Email a friend Send friends and family and email linking to your blog posts they ll love to see that you re now a published author! 6