Adding a blog to your community

Use a blog to share information with your community in an efficient, dynamic style.

When you are a community owner, you can create a blog for the use of community members. Each community can have only one blog.

Where your community blog displays on the Blogs app and how other users interact with it depends on whether it is public, private, or moderated. Users and owners can access community blogs in the following ways:

  • If your community is public, the blog is also public. In this case, the blog displays on the Public Blogs page and the My Blogs page.
  • If your community is a moderated community, which is a public community that users must ask to join, the blog is public, and displays on the Public Blogs page and the My Blogs page.
  • If your community is restricted, the blog is also restricted and is for the exclusive use of community members. The blog does not display on the Public Blogs page, but you can view and manage it from the My Blogs page.
Note: If you create a blog for a restricted community, but then change the community to a public community, the blog is displayed on the Public Blogs page and is available for all to read.

Creating a community blog

  1. From the navigation bar, click Communities then select the community you want to add a blog to.
  2. In the community menu, click Blog then New Entry. Or, from the Highlights page, click Create Blog Entry, or if you're creating the first entry Create Your First Entry.
  3. Add a title, tags, and description to your blog entry. You can also schedule when the entry gets published, if and for how long comments are allowed, and specify a custom URL in Advanced Settings.
    Note: Certain rich-text items that you add to a blog entry appear as plain text if you view them from the community Highlights page. For example, if you click the Details icon Details icon so you can view an entry from the community Highlights page, links appear as plain text and emoticons do not display. When you open the entry you will see the link in its proper format and be able to view the emoticon.
  4. Click Post. If you did not set a later publishing date, the new entry is immediately published.

What to do next

From the community, you can do the following:
  • See all blog entries by clicking View All in the Blog area of the community Highlights page. Or, access the community blog page by clicking Blog in the community menu.
  • Edit the blog's basic information. For more information, see Managing your community blog.
Note: The community blog that you create also displays on the My Blogs page, which you can access by clicking Blogs from the navigation bar. You can edit the settings for the blog from that page as well as from the community.