WCG-ers,

Just wanted to update everyone on the FanPost protocol. This post is not intended to be a reminder from the moderating police or anything like that; the goal of this post is to educate our new and existing members on how to make a great FanPost.

Unlike some other SBNation blogs, we're not afraid to take FanPosts and bump them to the front page. This is, after all, a fan blog. We've had some excellent FanPosts recently that we promoted. SackMan's article at the beginning of January is an example of an eloquently-written FanPost that we promoted. I realize that we're all busy in our lives outside of WCG and some might not have the time to put together a quality article such as this, but it's a great example of an article eligible for promotion to the front page. If your FanPost does not get bumped to the front page, it DOES NOT mean that it's bad! I want to make that crystal clear.

Also, if you see a post that is well-written and you like, don't be afraid to recommend it!

Follow me inside for more....

What NOT to do

This is not a good FanPost. Not to rip on BILLD34, but I'm sure you all can see what I mean. All caps is a no-no.

Quick Tutorial

The Dashboard

I've highlighted the important things you need to know.

STORY TITLE - The title is the most important part and not because of the easy reason of it draws readers in. The reason is for sites that pick up our stories, but also for the random Google searches. A good title example would be "Bears Trade for Arizona's Anquan Boldin".  Both teams are listed and the main player is as well.

INTRO PARAGRAPH - This area will be where the front page portion of the post goes. If the piece is 3-4 paragraphs the whole post can go here.  If you write a longer post, just put enough in this section to get the point across and get them started reading.  The rest goes in...

ENTRY BODY - This is where the remainder of you post goes. This will show up after readers click on ‘Continue reading this post' ".

SWITCH TO HTML EDITOR - The interface by default is "What you see is what you get" (WYSISWYG) format. It does have some preset formatting, but generally it is as you type it. If you are familiar with HTML you can click on this option to either do your whole post or more likely edit. 

POLLS - Self-explanatory I think. If you include a poll, it will always be front page.  Even if you intend it to be at the bottom of the post, it will show up at the end of the Intro Paragraph section.

SUBMIT FOR DISTRIBUTION - If you feel you wrote a great FanPost, take a look at the bottom of the Dashboard. You'll see a box that says "Submit for Distribution." Check it and write one to two sentences that summarize your post. If it's promoted to the front page, the Bears page on SI may even pick it up.  Recently, #23's Headlines post was picked up by SI.

LINKS: If you want to create a link embedded in the text like this, highlight the text you want to link. Click the chain-looking icon and paste the website address. If you don't want GeauxBears to have a stroke, you'll also have to click "Open in New Window."

TEAMS/PLAYERS - This is less for our site than it is for our network.  As you may know WCG is part of a larger family of blogs called SB Nation. When you enter Chicago Bears and Arizona Cardinals into the team section and Anquan Boldin into the players section, when you save the post the system goes through all sites stories and find posts with similar tags. So if you click on the post, the "Kerry Collins off the market" post for example and look down the right hand side bar you will see this:

If any of you are interested in that story, you can read more on this player at other sites.  It gives us better options from an info standpoint, but it also throws some traffic to other sites.

Other features that you will just need to play around with, but are pretty simple to figure out:

The picture frame is where you enter pictures.  If you want to use an existing one, it will show on the main screen.  You will have a tab called Upload to add a new one.

Other Tutorials:

Here's an excellent FanPost guide from the fellas at Mile High Report. Regardless how long you've been here, it's a good reminder of the tools at our disposal.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to comment here or email WCG, GeauxBears, or myself.