Blogging: posting Blog Articles from your boomtime Account

You've always wanted a blog but didn't want the hassle of using one of the independent solutions out there? 

With your account from boomtime, we've built it right in for you, even if we do not host your website!

How Blogging Works

We're going to manage blogging through the Marketing Tab, and it will display as part of your website, or as a link you can add to your existing website (just like you do for your Events or your Services). The actual articles are also written from within your Marketing Tab.  In this way, Blogging is like Events.  You create the content in one part of your boomtime account, and it is automatically updated on your blog page.

Getting Started

First, head over to the Marketing Tab.  Near the top of the screen you'll see two options: to the left is a link called "Blog Articles", and in the main column is a button that says, "turn on" Blogging:

Or, just click on Blog Articles from the left, where you can enable Blogging:

Back on the Marketing Tab, you can get started with your Blog articles. You'll see the option in the upper-left - Blog Articles, with a square orange icon:

Alternatively, you can click on "Add Article" directly from the Marketing Tab, near the top:

You'll see your Article list, which starts out empty:

All you need to do now is start writing!  There are no complicated settings to get through - just write & publish. 

You'll see a template with headline and narrative.  Enter a catchy headline and type in your narrative, as long or as short as you'd like:

Getting Ready to Publish

  • "Edit Blog Article" to open an Advanced Editor (recommended for advanced html editing - not normally needed)
  • "Publish on:" to schedule your article to be published in the future - extremely handy if you are creating several articles on the same day - you don't want them all out at once!
  • "Publish Now" to both Save and Publish immediately to the website.
  • "Include in email marketing" will show blog snippets in your email newsletters - neato! (Control how many in the Marketing Settings page under "Blog Articles in Emails")
  • [if Social Media is configured] "Send to Social Media" will create automatic social media postings to both Twitter and Facebook - whatever you have configured. You can also create a 2nd post to go, one week after the first.
  • Choose your Categories to allow refinement by your readers in the future when they read the HUGE amounts of blog posts you will be putting out! (Modify your Categories list from the Articles page, under Tasks)
The usual buttons apply, below:
  • "Save" to save and return to the Articles list (if you do not want to publish the article to the website right away)
  • "Update" to save your article but remain on this screen for further editing
  • "Cancel" abandons your new post or any changes
  • "Delete" will delete any article (even if published), but ONLY if there are no comments on the article.

You will not see the article on your Blog page until you Publish, even if you've saved the article.

How to Schedule Articles to publish in the future

Writing a bunch of content at once? You can set your articles to be published on a schedule, whether that's every few days or weeks or timed to coincide with an event - it is up to you.

Use the "publish on" field to choose your date and time, any time in the future.

Then click "Save" and the article will be stored and queued up for publishing. Your articles list with both published and scheduled articles might look like this:

Your Website, Before and After Publishing

Before you publish, you will see the new Blog link on your navigation bar (if you host your site with us):

Prior to publishing any articles, if you viewed your blog page right now from your website, you'd see something like this:

That's the result of a few possibilities:  you haven't written any articles, you have hidden your articles, or you have not published your written articles.

After you publish, you can view your latest articles on your site using Blog link on your navigation bar:

BLOG/ARTICLE SETTINGS

Go to Marketing --> Settings. You'll see a section for Articles, which is where you can manage how your blog posts show up on the blog page of your website.

If you're having a problem seeing articles at all - make sure they are 1) actually published and 2) you do not have the "articles per page" set to 0. :-)

 

For more options like articles-per-page and some of the other nitty gritty, see: Advanced Blogging Controls