AIIP Connections Blog Writing Guidelines
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Thank you for your interest in submitting a guest blog post to the AIIP Connections Blog. We are always looking for quality content of interest to our audience. We suggest that you consult these guidelines to understand our audience and what kinds of articles we post to the AIIP Connections Blog.
This is the public blog for the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Please direct any questions to our team at blog@aiip.org.
AIIP
The Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) is a unique professional association representing independent business owners who provide information-related services. We consider ourselves “info pros” or “infopreneurs.”
The services that our members provide are very diverse. It’s easiest to describe our membership by considering the five information-oriented practice areas: research, information management and technology, marketing and communications, training and consulting, and writing and editing. See Who We Are for more detail.
AIIP’s blogging strategy
We support our members getting started, managing their client relations, and growing their businesses. We are also educating the public about the value information professionals can offer them by sharing the thought leadership of our members. We encourage readers to connect with an information professional and we provide content aimed at those people exploring their own business opportunities in the information industry.
What we’re looking for
Through the AIIP Connections blog we showcase AIIP members as thought leaders and partners in the success of their clients.
We aim attract people who interested in learning more about the expertise of info pros and how they might benefit from information-related services.
Our readers tend to gravitate to posts that provide professional development and insight into managing an information-related business.
Guest blog posts by AIIP members should be useful and informative to our audience of AIIP members, as well as to people employed in the information industry who are considering going independent or who are already offering information-related services. Suggested subject categories are:
- AIIP news
- Getting started
- Case study / success story
- Growing your IIP business
- Tech trends
- Professional development tips
Alternatively, you could write a blog post on a single focus topic on any aspect of the information profession as it pertains to any of our five practice areas – research, information management and technology, marketing and communications, training and consulting, and writing and editing.
Marketing
Once your post has been published on the AIIP Blog, it will be promoted on AIIP’s social media sites, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
It may also be shared with our email list. Your post will remain on the blog for as long as the content remains relevant and it will be publicized randomly while it remains on the blog.
When your guest post goes live, we encourage you to share the link to it on the AIIP Blog on your own social media sites, your website, or in your newsletter.
We encourage you to promote the AIIP Blog version of your post, and do not publish your content it in its entirety anywhere else online.
Content guidelines
Brief posts
Posts should be between 400 and 600 words in length. For longer articles, consider something shorter or breaking content into two posts. Feel free to contact us to discuss options.
Original work
Content must be an original work submitted by the author and should not be previously published elsewhere online.
While we encourage service and product reviews, posts may not contain self-promotional, affiliate, or marketing content. You may include links to products or websites, but we will remove excessive links that appear to be self-promotional or affiliate in nature.
Concise and credible content
Use clear concise language that is easy to understand, emphasizes clarity and brevity, and avoids overly complex vocabulary ie “plain English”.
We encourage you to include links to credible resources to support your content but make sure your links lead somewhere and tell us if the link is behind a paywall.
Be sure to fact check your data, statistics, and quotations and attribute them to credible sources.
What we won’t post to the blog
- Blog posts that don’t address the needs and interests of our readers: Read the blog for ideas of what will resonate with the audience.
- Old news: Read the blog first and aim to provide new ideas or a new viewpoint in your guest post.
- Opinion pieces or editorials: Instead, offer tips, strategies, steps to follow, etc.
- We reserve the right to NOT publish a submitted guest post that is too much like a previously published post, does not provide quality content, is deemed too self-promotional, or is poorly written.
Writing for the web
Your post will be published online.
Writing for the web is different to writing for print because you read on a computer, laptop or phone differently to how you read a book, newspaper or magazine.
Skimming and scanning
Most people only scan what they read online.
Blocks of text are not friendly to your reader. An article that looks concise in a word processor can look wordy and be hard to read on a screen. Try to keep most paragraphs to a maximum of 3-4 sentences.
Make your content scannable by:
- Using subheadings to break up your content
- Avoiding clever headlines or subheadings – make your meaning clear
- Using bullet points instead of long paragraphs separated with semicolons
- Bolding key points within a sentence or paragraph
- Using single sentences between paragraphs for emphasis
Find out more
Plain Language: http://plainlanguage.gov is an excellent starting place if you are new to writing for the web, in particular:
- Web Standards for Plain Language
- Checklist for Plain Language on the Web and
- Repurposing Print Material
Submitting your blog post
Minimal formatting
Submit your content to blog@aiip.org in a Word or Google docs document file with as little formatting as possible.
Images
All post title and feature images for the AIIP Blog will be provided by the blog team in order to maintain style continuity.
If you have photos that will benefit your guest post, please send them with your text as a separate file.
Bio and Headshot
We will use your brief bio from the AIIP Business Directory and link to your profile from the Directory.
Editing
All guest posts should be grammatically correct and free of spelling errors. Proofread your post before sending it. Get a friend to read it for you or run it through a grammar/spell checker if necessary.
Proofread your post before sending it. Get a friend to read it for you or run it through a grammar/spell checker if necessary.
We reserve the right to make minor edits not affecting the content of your post without notifying you.
Disclaimers
AIIP is not responsible for validating the ownership, authenticity or accuracy of curated or original blog content.
AIIP is not responsible for maintaining the currency of any web links to materials. Contributors are responsible for providing updated links as necessary.
AIIP will incur no costs for providing access to any of our blog-based content.
Send any questions to the blog team at blog@aiip.org
