Journalists Using Blogs to Locate Industry Experts

In a recent survey of US journalists by PR Week, PR Newswire and Millward Brown, a significant percentage - nearly 30% of respondents - reported using blogs as a tool to locate experts. Here's the chart from eMarketer.com (click the screenshot below for a larger view):

This finding should be encouraging to lawyers publishing blogs as a tool for securing greater media visibility. The key to achieving such visibility is to select a niche topic with news value, and then publish well-written posts offering insights (i.e., your "two cents") on developments and trends in the niche on a regular and ongoing basis. That is, don't publish just once a week, and also don't publish 5X/week for 2 months and then stop.

Don't have the time to write your own blog posts? Consider hiring a former lawyer to "ghostwrite" blog posts for you, which you can edit, approve and publish. If this is the only way you'll achieve the publishing frequency necessary to attract media attention, then the investment will be well worth it.