IMPORTANT: This article references blogs and blog articles. Depending on your product model, you might see news and news articles in your site. These are different names for the same feature and references to blogs in this article are also applicable to news.

NOTE: You must belong to the HLBlogger Security Group to create and edit blogs.

See Spam Mitigation - Restrict Blog Creation to learn more.

View site and community blogs

There are several places where you can access site and community blog articles. The most common places are the Home pages of your site and your site's communities.

NOTE: These Home pages are the default Community site-configuration locations, so this article references them, but your Community site and communities might be configured differently.

View blogs on your site's home page

The most recent blog articles from across your site are listed in the Featured News & Blogs section on its Home page.

Click a More link (or a blog's title) to view the full blog.
Click View more articles to access the site's full list of blogs.

NOTE: You cannot create a blog here. If you have blog-creation permissions, refer to How to create a blog, below, to learn how.

View blogs on a community's home page

The most recent blog articles within a community are listed in the Blog section on its Home page.

Click a blog's title to view the full blog.
Click More to access the community's full list of blogs.

NOTE: You cannot create a blog here. If you are a member of the community and have blog-creation permissions, refer to How to create a blog, below, to learn how.

View blogs on the Blogs page

The default configuration for a site's navigation bar includes the Browse menu, which has a Blogs option that you can click to access all of the blogs posted across your site.

On the Blogs page, you can click:

The Most Recent dropdown to filter the list by most recent (the default), highest rated, most read, blogs posted by your Contacts, your own blogs, and blogs that are unpublished.
The Create a Post button to add a blog article. (Refer to How to create a blog, below.)
The Settings button to open the Blog Categories dialog and manage (add, edit, delete) your community-based Blogs categories.

How to create a blog

NOTE: You must belong to the HLBlogger Security Group to create and edit blogs. See Spam Mitigation - Restrict Blog Creation to learn more.

ACCESSIBILITY: Any time you're designing webpage or email-based content, it's more important than ever to keep modern accessibility principles in mind. Because this article touches on content design, we recommend referring to Best Practices - Accessibility and its associated resources.

There are three paths to the Post to Your Blog page:

In the site navigation bar, click Browse > Blogs > Create a Post.
In the site navigation bar, click Participate > Post to Your Blog.
On a community Home page, click the Blogs tab and then click Create a New Blog Post.

Create your blog post by completing the following fields:

Blog posting fields

Field	Description
Title of Your Blog Entry	Provide a clear title so users know what your article is about. The title is your first opportunity to grab the attention of other users and entice them to want to read your article.
Permalink to your blog post	The title entered above will automatically be appended here, creating the unique URL to your blog article. Most often, this is what's used, but you're free to modify it however you'd like. NOTE: Only dashes, numbers, and letters are allowed.
Category	Click the dropdown and choose a Category to associate this article to. To learn more, see Group Your Blogs with Categories.
Content Editor	Write your article here and use the toolbar options to format your text and perform actions like adding images, videos, and links. The file-size limit is 1GB. NOTE: Refer to the Content Editor page to learn more about the available editor options. NOTE: The only files you can include in a blog via the Content Editor's toolbar are images and videos. If you'd like to include other file types (e.g., a PDF or Word document), upload the file to a community's Library, and then insert the Library Entry's permalink in your blog post as a hyperlink. Keep in mind members you want to have access to the file need to be, or be able to become, members of the community where the file is stored.
Search Engine Optimization	Click Show to expand the section. To learn more refer to Search Engine Optimization, below.
Associate this post with a community	If you're posting from a community, it will be pre-selected here, but you can select any community you belong to. If you're not posting from a community, you can select any community you belong to. Associating your post to a community gives you the additional option in the Who can read your blog entry? field below to limit who can read it to the selected community's members.
Who can read your blog entry?	Set the security level for your post, controlling who can read it: Public - Both users with a login AND without a login to your site can read your article. Authenticated - Only logged in users can read your article. An authenticated user may or may not have Member status. [Site] Members - Only users belonging to Security Groups with Member rights can can read your article. Those with Member permissions can also read articles set to Authenticated. Selected Community - Only members of the community selected in the field above can read your article.
Who can make comments on this?	Choose whether only community members can comment or disable commenting.
Featured Image	Featured Images display as a banner at the top of a blog article. Landscape images measuring at least 1200 x 600px are ideal. Images with text are generally not recommended. Featured Images display on a blog's details page and in the Recent Blogs widget (only the Featured Image from the most recent blog will display). EXAMPLE NOTE: If a Featured Image is set, that image will be used when the blog is shared to social media platforms. However, if a Featured Image is not set and there are images in the body of the blog, the system will display the first image in the blog as the featured image when the blog is shared to social media platforms.

When you're finished, you have three options:

publish your article immediately,
schedule it for publishing at a later date, or
save it as a draft to work on at another time.

See Schedule & Draft to learn more about these options.

Search Engine Optimization

When you click Show to expand this section, several additional fields display.

IMPORTANT: To view the Meta tag format explanation page, right-click and choose the "new tab" option. If you (left) click this link, you will navigate away from this page and not be able to return.

NOTE: The information on the Meta tag format explanation page is not Higher Logic proprietary information. Higher Logic provides this link as a courtesy, but is not responsible for the contents.

Integration write-backs

If your Higher Logic site is associated with a third-party integrated database, some blog activities in your Community can be written to that database during the standard activity-sync process.

Navigate to Settings > External Content > Activity Sync in the Admin interface in order to manage writeback activities on the Subscriptions tab.

To learn about the activity-sync process, see Member Activity Sync.

Blogs Reports

View & Create Blog Articles