Blogs - How To Create a New Blog Feed and Write a New Blog Post

Introduction

This guide will explain how to create a new Blog Feed, and write a new Blog Post, in SmartHub. It will also point out some tips on how to make your Blog Post more interesting.

 

Prerequisites

New Blog Feeds can only be created by Admins. These are uses who have been set up to manage all Blog Feeds across the entire platform.

Blog Posts can be created by other members on the platform, as long as they have been granted a role on the particular Blog Feed they are trying to write in. (See; Blog Permissions Guide.)

 

Creating a New Blog Feed

To view the current Blog Feeds created, or to create a new one:

> Navigate to Account and then click on Manage blogs:

Any existing blogs will appear at the top of the page:

From here you can create a new Blog Feed by clicking; create a new blog, or you can start to write a post within one of your existing feeds.

 

Managing a Blog

Once a Blog Feed has been created, from the Manage blogs page:

> Click on the name of the Blog Feed to open it.

> Click on Blog settings to control if the blog is live, add a the description, obtain the URL of the blog, as well as whether or not you want all blogs to have the announcement feature enabled by default:

> Click on Blog roles to control who has access to write posts in each blog. 

 

Creating a New Post for a Blog

Once a blog has been created, the next step is to create content for it! There are several places from which the writer can create their blog post:

1. From the 'Manage Blogs' Section

If the writer has not written any posts previously, the below message will be shown on the main page when they navigate to the Manage Blogs section on their platform. 

Either of the two green buttons shown here can be clicked to take them through to their first post creation:

2. From the Blog Feed

Each Blog Feed as a homepage, where all published posts are displayed in chronological order. To the top right of this feed, anyone with an Administrator, Editor, Blogger or Contributor role will be able to see the green Write a post button, which can be clicked to a start a new post:

3. From the Blog Tile

If a blog tile is used anywhere on the platform, anyone with an Administrator, Editor, Blogger or Contributor role will be able to see the green Write a post button in the top-right corner of the tile. This can be clicked to take them through to a new post page.

4. From the ‘Mega Menu’

Within the Mega Menu (the primary navigation menu at the top of the platform), anyone with Blog roles (Administrator, Editor, Blogger or Contributor) will see an option on the right-hand side of the menu to Write a post’

Writing a Post

Once the user clicks on the Write a Post button, there are two different scenarios which may occur:

1. If they have access to one Blog Feed only, they will be redirected to the editor page, where they can start writing.

2. If they have access to more than one Blog Feed, they will be shown a screen asking them to select which blog they want to create a new post for.

When the user selects the Blog Feed (or if they have access to only one) they will be taken to the editor page, where they can start writing their post:

Adding Images

Add an image by uploading a file from your computer (click the grey area, or drop a file into it).

The maximum image size is 15MB and the supported image formats are JPG, JPEG, PNG, and GIF. 

Once the image has been selected, you have a few options. Drag the corners to resize the image. Choose the alignment of your image in the page with the magic wand icon. To add a caption to your image, click on the speech bubble icon. The information icon gives you the ability to add alternate text to your image.

Images embedded on the platform will be Private, meaning we have a signature-based Asset URL attestation method that limits access to assets for a period of 5 minutes after the blog content is loaded. When an Asset URL with an invalid or expired signature, a HTTP 410 (Gone) response is issued. 

This means that if an unauthenticated user tries to access the Blog Image URL after the 5 minute signature has expired, they will not be able to load the image - ensuring it remains secure.

Adding Videos

There are three options for adding videos to your blog. 

1. First, you can add a video from YouTube, Vimeo, or Dailymotion by pasting its URL via the link icon. 
2. The second option is to paste the video embed code via the brackets icon. 
3. The final option is uploading a video from your computer.

If you are uploading a video from your computer, it must be under 2GB, and in any of the following formats: MOV, MPG, AVI, MP4, WMV, MKV, DIVX.

Mentioning

While writing a post, the writer may wish to mention someone from the organization. This is done by adding the '@' symbol or by clicking Add then Mention. 

A list of users will then show, with an autocomplete option which the writer can use to find the person they are looking for. They can use the up/down arrows on the keyboard to navigate the list of suggested users and enter to select the right person or click with the mouse on the person they want to select. 

Once the person is selected, their full name will appear in the text in blue.

Table of Contents

The table of contents helps you navigate around the page. When you click on a link in the table of contents, it will take you directly to the section to edit it. This eliminates the need to scroll back up to the top of the page to access the table of contents, saving time and hassle.

Post Settings

Adding a Featured Image

The featured image is the main photo of the post. It is going to be used when the post is displayed inside the blog feed, in the blog tile, and in the search results.

There are two ways to add a featured image: one is to use the tool in the right-hand sidebar next to the editor, and the other is automatic. The first image the writer adds to their post is automatically going to be selected as the ‘featured image’ of the post. The writer can change the featured image of the post at any time. The recommended image dimensions are 1000x1000 (or larger).

Unlike embedded images on blog posts, Featured Images on Blog posts are Public, this is because these images are loaded in Emails and any other integrations active (such as Slack & Teams etc). Whilst the image URL is complex and extremely unlikely to be guessed, there is not additional security in place on the URL causing it to expire, so it will remain accessible.

Tagging

Using tags allows the writer to cross-reference their article with other, relevant content. Tags are added from the bottom part of the editor page. The input has an autocomplete functionality which suggests tags that are already used in the program. 

If the post writer wishes to create a new tag, they can do so by writing it in the input and then selecting the option (+ add new tag) from the drop-down menu.

Segmentation

Segmentation allows the post writer to create different versions of the post which can be seen by different segments of people within the organization. 

Change Author

Blog Administrators and Editors have the ability to change the author of a post. This is especially useful if you have one person uploading the content but it is created by others eg the CEO. They can select anyone from the program and set them as the displayed author of the post. This person will then receive notifications for activity related to this post.

Featured Post

Administrators and Editors have the ability to make a post ‘featured’. Featured posts are also shown as the first post on top of the blog feed and the blog tile (only on bigger sizes of the tile) until it is removed or another featured post is picked. Only a single post can be featured at any given time.

Publishing the Blog Post

Once the post is ready, it can be published either immediately or scheduled to be published at a later date and time by clicking More options then Schedule for later.

Note: For situations where people may be posting blogs from within different time zones, the time zone that the post is scheduled in is based on the time zone of the scheme's home base. Once a date and time is selected, the time zone it has been scheduled for will appear.

• All US schemes use the ET time zone.
• All Australian schemes use the AET time zone.