This blog is for you if you who would like to become a blogger on SCN but have so far felt that you are too busy to figure out how to do it. Everybody is talking about blogging, right? You know you have something to say and it's even free.

Read this 101 blog and you'll be up and running in no time! You'll be able to communicate with your peers, customers and partners through this fun medium and be able to add something else to your resume.

Step 1:

Register as a member: https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/bpx/register

While you can read a lot of information on SCN without membership, to get actively involved, you'll need to identify yourself to your peers.

Step 2:

Click on "How To Contribute" at the top of each community page, or here: https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/submitcontent

This page gives you a lot of useful information on what content is appropriate for each of our SCN communities and how to get engaged. If you scroll down a bit, you'll find a section on blogs with a link to "create/update author page": https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/sdnweblogs/becomeblogger

A simple web form walks you through this process.

For your "personal bio", think about what you'd like to know about a blogger on SCN and provide that level of information. I do marketing for SAP so disclose that in my bio.

I recommend adding a picture. You can store it on sites like Flickr and simply provide the URL to your picture in "your photograph" box.  Once finished, "Submit".

Step 3:

That was it, you are ready to blog, as soon as your notification email has arrived. Once you click the URL in that mail, you'll find another simple web-based form to create your blog.

Here a few tips on creating an interesting and well-formatted blog:

• It might seem like a good idea to tag your blogs for as many areas on SCN as possible, but it is actually not. Try and limit only to the audience that will derive the greatest value.
• I write all my blogs in word, then click on the little Word icon in the "Main text of weblog" area. That means, CTRL C in your Word document, then DO NOT CTRL V but instead click on the Word icon (WYSIWYG editor) to paste.
• Above the "main text" area, include one or two sentences that summarize your blog. People might see this in RSS feeds and on their blackberries. You could include a short URL there.
• I am sure you want the URLs in your blog to open in a new window. I do. To do that, highlight the URL in your blog text and click on the little chain icon above the "Main text of weblog" area.  A small box will open up. Choose "Open in a new window" from the drop down. Do this for each of your links.
• You will see the option to mark your blog as "draft" or "final". If you submit as draft, you can see how your blog will look as it is displayed on the site. You can go back and make edits until you submit as "final".
• If you would like to link submit an article, video or other content to SCN and reference it in your blog, go back to the "How To Contribute" page and click on "Submit & track article and media" link in the right hand column: https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/contentsubmission . Once you submitted and tagged your content in the web-based form, you only need to wait to get a URL for your content (check back on the same page the next day).
• Don't be afraid to post YouTube videos or podcasts. To insert a video: click on the "media" icon above your text. Enter the video URL and add the following to the end of the URL: &hl=en.
• To run a podcast in your blog, click the "media" icon and insert the URL. Choose a player, e.g. Quicktime and check the advanced option, e.g. you might not want the video to loop.
• You've written a blog before but now can't remember how to get back to the blogging tool? Navigate to one of the communities, e.g. http://bpx.sap.com/. Click on the "blog" tab. In the left hand column you will find "Blogger Home".
• More tips under the "How to blog" section:  https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/blogs-communityguidelines

I hope you found this 101 for Bloggers Blog useful! I plan to create a ScreenCam that takes you through all of this.