Our series on Social Media has reached the third week, and we have yet to discuss a specific website or service in detail.  So now, it is time to dive in and get started.  The focus of this discussion will be using Blogs to gain and share knowledge within certain communities.
For this post, we do not have to assume that you currently write for or operate a blog of your own.  That will come later.  This is about taking advantage of the blogs that are already out there, and that other people are using to get information.

A blog, for those who are unfamiliar, is quite simply a webpage devoted to writing articles of interest in a particular area.  They can be owned and operated by one person or a group of people.  The most popular ones have many writers, with new articles (or posts) coming out very frequently (many times each day).

Reading blogs in your area of interest is a great way to get news and updates quickly and easily.  Whereas traditional media like newspapers and television are broad and slow to deliver, blogs offer current, easily accessible information on niche areas of interest.  If you think a specific topic that you find interesting, there are most likely a number of blogs devoted to that topic on the web. 

With well over 100 Million blogs out there, it is important that you can focus your readership to those blogs that will offer the most relevant, and interesting information for you.  You can do this in a number of ways, but the easiest is doing a search on Google.  If you go to google.com and look at the top left corner, there will be a link that says “More”.  Click that and find the link for “blogs”.  That will take you to Google’s blog search.  From there, simply search for anything you might want to read about.

From there, you can subscribe to the blogs that you find most interesting so that you can review updates automatically whenever you want.  Instead of going back to that blog every day, many blogs allow you to enter your email address and receive new articles via email.  However, too many emails can get annoying, so most people will subscribe in a blog reader.

A blog reader allows you to group all your subscriptions onto one page and lets you access all the blogs from your own account.  If you search Google for “google reader”, you can sign up for their blog reader account.  From there, simply type in the web address for each blog that you wish to follow and you are all set.

Blogs can be a great source of information, no matter what area you are in.  With opinionated, up to date information, they offer knowledge and ideas that you would not get anywhere else.  There is a great shift taking place in how people obtain their news, and the more we can gather information online through blogs and other sources, the easier it will be to stay current.

Here are some legal blogs that I would recommend taking a look at to start: Wall Street Journal Law Blog, Above the Law, Simple Justice, The Legal Beat, How Appealing, Overlawyered.  Also, take a look at Blawg.com to see hundreds of other legal blogs.

Past Editions of this Series:
Part One – Intro to Social Media for Attorneys
Part Two – Signing up for the Networks