How to make Confluence blogs visible to everyone

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Blogs are a native Confluence feature that allows users to create and share articles, thoughts, and insights within their company’s Confluence instance. While Confluence offers various documentation and project management features, blogs provide a more informal and dynamic way for individuals to communicate and share information.

But wait. Something doesn’t seem to be right here. If Confluence blogs are such an awesome opportunity to be heard (and are available to everyone), why do so many employees hesitate to start writing and sharing knowledge?

Here’s why. Unfortunately, Confluence blogs usually remain hidden within the company’s shared workspace, like undiscovered gems. Although Confluence provides basic content creation tools, it does little to ensure the rest of the team knows about new blog posts. As a result, excellent blog content is often overlooked and not given due credit. Now that you look at it, it’s no surprise that aspiring Confluence authors lose their motivation and stop blogging altogether.

If you want to promote content creation and knowledge sharing among your team, ensuring everyone can quickly find, and access blogs relevant to them in Confluence is important. Read on to learn how Confluence blogging can help your company improve information flow and how Caelor apps can help you get the most out of your Confluence blogs by turning them into easy-to-find must-reads.

Blogging in Confluence? BIG yes!

Still not sure if blogging in Confluence is the right way to go? Let’s challenge you to reconsider that. Creating blogs in Confluence has many benefits, including the following:

1. Knowledge sharing: Blogs provide a platform for individuals to share their expertise, experiences, and ideas with other team members. They effectively spread information, best practices, and lessons learned, fostering a culture of knowledge sharing within the company.
2. Communication: Blogs serve as a means of communication within teams or the entire company. They can be used to announce updates, share news, or discuss important topics.
3. Thought leadership: Employees can showcase their expertise and contribute to the company’s intellectual capital by regularly publishing insightful articles and opinions.
4. Documentation and retention: Blogs can be valuable for documenting processes, guidelines, and important discussions. Unlike traditional documents, blogs provide a chronological view of the evolution of ideas and discussions, making it easier to track the context and history of a particular topic.

Big yes, but there’s a small “but”: Drawbacks of Confluence blogs

As it usually goes, there are always pros and cons. And while the benefits of blogs in Confluence are undeniable, they do come with a few drawbacks and challenges:

1. Lack of engagement: Although blogs allow comments and discussions, the level of engagement can vary. Blogs are typically confined to specific spaces, making them less visible and more difficult for users to find relevant and interesting content. As a result, click-through rates (CTR) suffer, and engagement drops. A lack of interest and feedback may discourage authors from regularly posting or contributing.
2. Quality control: As the number of blogs grows, maintaining the quality and accuracy of shared information can become a challenge. Since blogs are more informal, without proper feedback and visibility for the whole company, there is a risk that inaccurate or out-of-date material will spread.

However, with the right apps at your hand, the above listed become a minor roadblock rather than a barrier when it comes to creating and sharing great blogs in Confluence.

Increase the visibility of your Confluence blogs and enhance engagement with Content Viz and Cosmos

Make your Confluence blogs hard to miss. And easier to keep an eye on so you can respond immediately if some outdated or incorrect information surfaces.

By highlighting and featuring selected and relevant blogs, you will increase their visibility, draw in more readers and ensure quality control. Here’s how to do it quickly and hassle-free:

News on the Confluence page

To overcome the visibility challenge, create a centralized blog directory/Confluence page with the help of Content Viz. This dedicated page can serve as a hub for all blogs in Confluence, providing all users with a one-stop location to discover and explore the latest articles and insights. Categorize your Confluence blogs by labels/spaces/contributors, choose among different view options, and make it easy for users to find content that aligns with their interests.

News section on the Confluence dashboard

Another way to use Content Viz’s powerful features is to create a news section on your existing Confluence dashboard or landing page. This carefully selected, visually appealing blog collection will grab readers’ attention and encourage them to read the full articles. Display hand-picked or dynamic blogs, making them the center of attention, simple to find, and difficult to ignore.

Pre-built Newsroom fully integrated with your Confluence

If ready-made solutions are more your style, then the Cosmos Newsroom feature is just the thing for you. Cosmos, Caelor’s free Confluence intranet app, offers a pre-built news hub, Newsroom.

Cosmos seamlessly integrates with your Confluence, allowing you to create a dynamic and visually appealing blog directory (Newsroom) within your intranet. The entire setup takes just a few clicks, thanks to Cosmos’ ability to sync with your Confluence instance and to pull blogs from it. Applying selected filters is all you need to do. By using Cosmos Newsroom and its advanced filtering options, you can gather all Confluence blogs in one place, enhance their visibility and make it easier for users to find valuable content.

Bonus tip: Use engaging visuals in your Confluence blogs

Enhance the visual appeal of your Confluence blogs to captivate readers’ attention and add that extra flair with the content formatting macros. Include your blog's eye-catching images, cards, and other visuals to improve its readability. Visual elements break up the text, make the content more engaging, information more interesting, and increase the likelihood of users clicking through to read the full blog post.

Try out MacroSuite – Content Formatting app for Confluence, turn heads with your sparkling Confluence pages, and witness magic in action!

Give your Confluence blogs the boost they deserve

If a blog gets published in Confluence and no one sees it, is it worth the effort? That’s why the way Confluence blogs are used needs to be revolutionized ASAP. And this means taking the right steps and using the rights apps to solve the issues with visibility and engagement.

So if you want to increase the visibility, popularity, and engagement of your Confluence blogs, don’t forget to:

• create a central blog directory on a Confluence page or use a pre-built one
• highlight blog collections on a Confluence dashboard
• give your team access to powerful content visualization and formatting apps to encourage content creation
• include eye-catching content formatting macros

Follow these tips and give your Confluence blogs the boost and attention they deserve. Try out Caelor apps today and watch how your Confluence blogs’ click-through rates soar!

Need help or have a question? Hit us up!

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