Law firms can learn from new House Speaker’s use of blogs

Don’t read this as a taste of my political views – not touching that third rail here, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is making full use of bloggers to push the Democratic agenda.

From The Associated Press:

Pelosi hired a full-time staff member this month dedicated to blogger outreach, and is making plans to launch a blog of her own.

She and other politicians have come to realize that blogs are a way to communicate directly with a politically engaged audience, without filtering by traditional media.

Last week, shortly before President Bush’s State of the Union address, Pelosi aides arranged for bloggers to question two Democratic House leaders.

For law firms, blogs should not be viewed as working best in politics. Politicians know that bloggers are influencers. Bloggers influence the target audience politicians want to reach whether the mass media or other voters. Sure they’ll do traditional PR and campaigning but they’ve learned that reaching bloggers is highly effective.

Law firms can influence bloggers as well. The goal is not to influence political blog pundits or blogs drawing a massive audience. The goal of a good law firm blog is to influence those bloggers with a readership comprised of your target audience. The target audience being your prospective clients and those who influence them.

By blogging about about other blog posts referencing your area of practice and/or locale and by networking with blog publishers writing about your nice, you’ll be influencing relevant blog publishers. You’re influencing these bloggers that you are a trusted and reliable authority in your area of practice. Do that and your blog content will be cited in their blogs, with the result being that your target audience sees you as an expert.