Using News Readers To Source Content For Your Blog

Are you using a news reader to get your news? With a reader, the news comes to you, instead of you having to hunt it down. News readers are one of my favorite timesavers and a cornerstone of my social media strategy.  First I picked my new sources (that is, my “thought leaders”), and now their news is delivered to my reader.

I check my reader once or twice a day to see what’s being reported as news from my thought leaders, and share as appropriate. For business-related social media stories, I post them here to PluggedInLawyer.com. For general interest social media stories, I post them to my Facebook friends.  Sometimes I just tuck the story away for a time when I can use it as a source of inspiration for a fuller post written by me.

To see an explanation of Google’s Reader (my personal favorite) in plain english, take a peek at the video below from my all time favorite translators of complex concepts, the Common Craft Show.

Once you get the big picture from the video above, here is a slightly longer video with more details and suggestions for leveraging the power of the reader.

If you’re interested in checking out readers other than Google’s, check out this article.

News is an excellent source of content for your blog.  Even if you do nothing more than share news, you can still add value to your audience by virtue of what stories you choose to share.  For instance, I read all the social media news so that you don’t have to.  It’s easy for me because I dig that stuff.  Based on my seven years in the social media space, I can identify stories that my readers (social lawyers) will likely find interesting.  If you can add a few sentences of commentary to introduce the story, even more value will be added for your audience.  I do this, time permitting or when I feel particularly inspired to add my $.02.