PRblogs.org

This page is a compilation of the first email you receive upon signing up for a blog and the first post that will appear in your blog to get you started.

The email you receive upon signing up for a blog.

Welcome!

PRblogs.org is a community devoted to Public Relations and Marketing Communications. We welcome PR practitioners, educators and students. Please visit the site’s Terms of Use: http://prblogs.org/terms-of-use/

There are some rules. Not many. We ask that all blogs in our community devote at least half of their content to the discussion of these topics. Address current issues/trends, identify best practices and use the site to talk about these, and other, issues within your sphere of influence / experience. Blogs not discussing the community’s area of focus will be removed. There are many free blog sites like Blogger/Blogspot, MSN Spaces, Yahoo! 360, LiveJournal, MySpace and more.

We do not want to see blatant promotions and self-promotions in the blogs. This is a site for honest and open discussions. Not a sales tool. Yes, please write about your work, if you wish. But, we ask that all participants avoid turning the community into a marketing tool for your personal interests.

Please Note: We will delete/turn off any blogs containing any form of what we determine to be spam or a ’splog’. A splog is defined as any blogs which are intentionally fake and are created to increase a page rank, get ad impressions, send/redirect users to another site and/or use the blog as a link to get new sites indexed.

Your new blog has been successfully set up at:
http://blogname.prblogs.org/wp-login.php

You can log in to the administrator account with the following information:

Username: USERNAME
Password: PASSWORD

Login Here: http://blogname.prblogs.org/wp-login.php

By logging into, and using your blog, you agree to the following Terms of Use: http://prblogs.org/terms-of-use/

Your new blog contains a ‘first post’ with some helpful instructions if you have never used a blog before. Also, if you have any further questions, please email me at prblogsupport (at) gmail (dot) com and ask for help.

We hope you enjoy your new PRblog weblog.

Thanks!

– Robert French

This is the first post that will appear in your blog.

You may, of course, delete this from your blog after you get started.

Welcome to PRblogs.org. This is your first post. Read it to learn how to choose your theme and do more with your blog …

You should have received an email confirming your blog. If you don’t, please follow these instructions.

• Please visit the login page for your blog. It is http://blogname.prblogs.org/wp-login.php
• You will be able to click on the link - Lost your password? - and enter the following information.
• Username: This is whatever appears before “.prblogs.org” in your blog’s address.
• E-mail: This is whatever email address you used when signing up.
• This should cause an email to be sent to you with instructions on how to reset the password.
• If you still have problems, please write to prblogsupport (at) gmail (dot) com and we will send you a new password.

Now, you have your blog. Here are some important things to do:

• Select your blog’s theme, or appearance
• Activate plugins, like those that allow you to post videos
• Create categories for your posts and links
• Become familiar with your blog’s Administration panel
• Start blogging

So, to get started, read on …

Login to your blog. There is a link in the email you received that ends with …/wp-login.php. Visit that page and enter your username and the password from the email. It is wise to change that password to something more familiar to you. The best passwords use characters and numbers. The characters should be uppercase and lowercase. So, click on “User” and fill in all the pertinent boxes. Name and Nickname are required. Then, at the bottom of that list are two boxes for resetting your password.

If you have questions, you may write to PRblogs.org here: prblogsupport (at) gmail (dot) com

If you want to go further, in the “Options” and “Discussion” areas, check the box that requires all comments to be approved by the Administrator before showing up in your blog. Those two tasks should help make your blog fairly free of spam. However, spam is a reality of blogging. So, you may start receiving emails stating that a comment is awaiting approval. Just mark it as spam, if it is, and that’s all there is to it.

Next, it is probably best to create some categories for your posts. Click the “Manage” button and then click “Categories” to begin making new ones. You can even rename the first/default category. The simplest ones to start with are Public Relations, Personal, PR, Marcom, etc. As you continue blogging, you’ll think of new categories for your posts and you can create them along the way.

Now, the first post. Click the “Write” button in the Admin menu. Give your post a title and then fill in the post window/box below that. Choose a category from the dropdown menu on the right side. Those menus dropdown when you click the “plus sign” (+) in the bar.

For other instructions about how to use your blog, visit the WordPress Codex wiki. This is a collection of information about WordPress. It refers to WordPress version 1.5. You are using 1.6 and there isn’t a lot of documentation for this new version, but the information in the Codex is quite good.

If, under the Presentation section of the Admin area, you do not see any themes that appeal to you, there are more. Visit the WordPress Theme Browser and pick a new one. Not all of those themes will work in this version of WordPress, but we are willing to try them out. There is another list of 1.5 version themes that should work with WP 1.6. Check them out here.

Also, if you want to add more functionality to your blog, the following plugins are available at the WordPress Plugin Database. Plugins will be considered for inclusion in the blogs on a case by case basis. In a community environment, some may not be appropriate. The following contact form may be used to tell me about any themes and plugins you might like to try.

When you are through with this post, feel free to edit or delete it, then start blogging on your own!

If you have any further questions, please write to me and ask me for help.

Thank you for joining PRblogs.org.