Is your law blog a Mashable or a New York Times?

Do you approach blogging as covering all relevant news in your niche or covering your niche socially? There’s a big difference and you may be surprised as to which works better.

In a talk before the Canadian Journalism Foundation, Mashable editor-in-chief, Jim Roberts (@nycjim), explained that Mashable approaches the news as a social activity.

GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram (@mathewi), reporting on the talk caught Roberts’ key point.

Sharing is the main guiding principle of Mashable’s approach to news. …[W]ith any story, a reporter or editor should be asking themselves whether it is something they would share with their friends or family. The Mashable editor said that when he is looking through Twitter or Facebook or the news-wire, if something catches his eye and is worth sharing then it should be on the site.

Mashable is working both sides of the social equation. On the one side its reporters and editors monitor social media to see what is being widely discussed. On the other side Mashable reports those items which it believes will be widely shared by its audience. After all, Mashable’s audience is its distribution system.

Roberts, who served as assistant managing editor of The New York Times for 26 years, explains Mashable has a whole different approach to the news than the Times.

…[U]nlike a news entity like the New York Times, Mashable has the luxury of not having to cover everything — it can pick and choose which stories to focus on, based on whether it thinks those stories will resonate with its audience…

As a result of its approach, Mashable generates significant traffic from social media, with Facebook by far the largest, accounting for upwards of 30 percent of the site’s visitors on a typical day.

Law firms and lawyers are generally looking for their niche law blogs to be the definitive resource on a subject. Their expectation is that by reporting on any significant legal development, they’ll draw a good sized audience and be viewed as trusted authorities.

Their blogs rarely cite third party blogs and mainstream media discussing relevant issues. The lawyers are not active on social media listening to items being discussed and shared socially.

It’s a difficult approach. One law firm practice group I was recently speaking with said they were trying to be the New York Times for a niche, as opposed to socially reporting ala Mashable. Though a good blog, they were having trouble gaining the visibility they were looking for.

We discussed the opportunities of taking a more social approach. Following relevant sources (blogs and mainstream publications) and subjects in RSS readers. Lawyers taking a more active role socially, particularly on Twitter.

By listening to relevant “discussion” the lawyers would blog on items in which their audience had the most interest. By citing other sources on their blog and sharing third party content on Twitter, the lawyers would build an audience who wanted to share the lawyers’ blog posts.

Sound gimmicky? Shallow? Not really.

Your end goal as a law blogger is not to be the “definitive source.” Your goal is to develop business by building relationships and growing your word of mouth reputation.

Socially reporting will place you in the center of relevant discussion and garner a following who trust you enough to share your blog posts with their following.

Social reporting, ala Mashable, opens the door to relationships and grows your word of mouth reputation through greater visibility. A more enjoyable form of blogging and one that’ll help you realize your business development goals.