IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management Blogging Strategy

Hello, community and friends!

Do you have news about our product? Are you excited about a new solution? Are users waiting for an announcement or a how-to article? You may be ready to submit a blog. The IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management Information Development team can help you publish blogs to Medium and we can also help you contribute drafts to the IBM Cloud blog or IBM Developer blog.

Even if you are not from the IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management organization, you can contribute to our Medium publication community if your blog is IBM Cloud Pak-centered. First take a look at a few notes:

Important! If you need help from the Information Development team, open a GitHub issue (because nothing gets done around here without a GitHub issue).

Just as important: If you are contributing middleware, you will need an editor from your team to review your blog before our team publishes on Medium for you. (Please tag your editor in the GitHub issue.)

An internal link to github.ibm.com is located at the end of this blog so that you can open an issue. If you cannot label the issue `squad doc` and `blog`, simply assign me to your issue: Paula Stack (stackpau), otherwise assign your writer.

Arguably importantER: Talk to your team of writers to see if you need to add your information to the product documentation. Product documentation is tested, updated, and maintained. Since Medium could be discontinued without notice, you want to ensure it is not the only source for significant documentation. You also want to consider posting to IBM Cloud, then importing to Medium so that your blog is located on an IBM site.

Best practice: To add contributors (anyone you want to credit for helping you write or review), mention them early in your content. To “@mention” a contributor, that person must have a Medium profile set up.

Example: Cowritten by @insertcollaborator and reviewed by @peerreviewer.

To learn more about formatting, see Tips or simply search for answers — there are many blogs about how to use Medium.

Now, allow us to walk you through the process!

1. Plan your topic

2. Choose your platform

3. Write your blog

4. See resources and examples

Plan your topic

1. Pick a topic.
2. Review existing blogs to ensure the topic is not already covered. If it is already covered, you can continue to contribute to the conversation with supplemental or interesting developments.

Choose your platform

• IBM Cloud blog (For mid-length publications)

You should only publish information that is interesting to all IBM Cloud users on the IBM Cloud blog. How-to, product introductions, videos, announcements are all welcomed. The audience is diverse — lots of readers. IBM Cloud is very product-centric. (Formally known as the Bluemix blog.)

• Thoughts on Cloud (Leaders and industry experts)

The Thoughts on Cloud blog is a leading source of insights, news and analysis for the cloud community, presented by IBM and powered by exclusive commentary from IBM thought leaders and industry experts, along with curated, relevant cloud computing news from around the globe.

• Medium IBM Cloud (For mid-length publications or longer series blogs)

If your blog is related to IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management solutions, you can work with the ID team to publish on our Medium publication, titled IBM Cloud. Solutions to common problems, new ideas about container development, how-to articles, and occasional announcements are all welcomed.

You must register for Medium and request the IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management writers/editors to add you to the IBM Cloud publication. This can all happen in that GitHub issue that you open!

If you are outside of the IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management organization and want to publish on Medium, be sure that you have an editor on your team to help with your draft. If you are fortunate enough to have writers or editors on your team, reach out to them before you start drafting.

• IBM Developer blog (For short to mid-length publications)

This blog is best known for code patterns. Recipes are also popular, as are multi-media blogs.

Write your blog

1. Create a draft. Include prerequisites for any task, and specific versions of the products if your blog is only for a certain release. Readers need to know the product version you are working with.
2. Include enough background information for the reader to understand your material.
3. Include screenshots/videos/gifs to help clarify complicated interactions and be sure to add a description under those images.
4. Keep the tone informal but choose your pronouns carefully. Avoid using “we” and “our” because it can be difficult to know who you’re referring to. For a user task, use “you.”
5. Never use abbreviations for the IBM products or any other abbreviations that are not in the company’s documentation. For instance, Google uses GKE, but IBM never publishes ICP or MCM.
6. Have your blog reviewed. Lean on your ID team for feedback and editing. Use the GitHub issue to track comments and validate that the blog was reviewed and edited.

Post your blog

Post to Medium

The IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management Information Development team, along with a couple of other team members, are responsible for maintaining and publishing to Medium.

1. Register for a Medium account.
2. In your GitHub issue, post your username and email and request to be added to the IBM Cloud Medium publication.
3. Sign in to Medium when you are ready to write and post your blog.
4. Click Your Profile Avatar.
5. Click New Story.
6. Add your draft, review the content, and reformat your article as needed. Read through the whole draft.
7. Add up to five tags to enhance reach of your articles. Focus on keywords that have larger number of subscribers versus too narrow of scope. (Kubernetes and Cloud Computing are great examples, as are things like Security.)
8. Click Publish to get the article on your profile.
9. Click the More actions button (the “…” icon).
10. Click Add to publication, then click IBM Cloud > Submit story.
11. Add the draft URL to the GitHub issue. (Internal developers: You can go ahead and assign the issue to the IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management writer who works with your squad if you have that information.)

How to submit: steps 9 and 10.

Repost an existing blog to Medium

If you posted your blog elsewhere, you can repost it to Medium for more awareness and sharing.

1. Sign into Medium.
2. Click Your Profile Avatar.
3. Click Stories.
4. Click Import a Story.
5. Review and reformat your article as needed. Note that code snippets, images and sometimes ordering of paragraphs do not import as planned. It is best to read through the entire article a couple of times and ask a team member to review the draft, too.
6. Click Preview to see what your post looks like.
7. Tag the article. Use up to the max number of tags to enhance the reach of your articles. Focus on keywords that have larger number of subscribers versus too narrow of scope (Kubernetes and Cloud Computing are great examples as are things like Security)
8. Click Submit for Publishing.
9. Add your blog to the IBM Cloud Medium collection.

Post to IBM Cloud blog

IBM ID users must go through the onboarding steps to be a contributor. Please contact Ian Smalley on Slack (ian.smalley) or by email (ian.smalley@ibm.com) if you have further questions after onboarding.

Post to Thoughts on Cloud

IBM ID users go through the Submitting a blog process to get your blog published. Please contact Erika Ulring on Slack (@erika) or by email (eulring@us.ibm.com) if you have further questions.

Post to IBM Developer blog

1. Request to be a contributor
2. Fill out the form and submit your proposal.

Once your blog is posted, you are ready to share!

Resources

If you are an external user and have questions, send us a note on the IBM Cloud Technology (Public Slack) channel.

Internal users can drop us a note on the #private-cloud-docs channel on the IBM Watson Cloud platform.

Remember to open a GitHub issue and label it `squad doc` and `blog`.

Blog examples

Here are a few examples of effective blog posts, contributed by Lindsay Martin:

1. “Certified Kubernetes Deployments Made Easy with WebSphere Liberty Cloud Pak” by Arthur De Magalhaes. This blog, posted to Medium, contains useful information that is well-organized. The formatting features, such as lists and diagrams, make it easy to scan.
2. “Fortifying IBM Cloud Private for large enterprise Power systems” by Pradipta Banerjee. This Medium blog has a clear overview of the content and includes subheadings that help readers find the information they’re looking for.
3. “Four Steps to Debugging Java Spring Boot Microservices Running in Docker Containers” by Shili Yang. This IBM Cloud blog presents an engaging real-world problem and how to address it.
4. “Deploy a Multicloud Application Using GitOps with IBM Multicloud Manager 3.1.2” by Zvi Cahana and Alexey Roytman. This IBM Cloud blog is a straight-forward how-to blog with plenty of detailed instructions and screen captures.