Gear Up for Giving is a month-long series (throughout September) of social media tutorials, to help nonprofits and their supporters understand how to use key tools and techniques to create awareness, catalyze civic action and cultivate new supporters and donors for their causes.

You can watch the introductory video on the Gearing Up for Giving website to learn more about social media.

The following list (download attachment below) includes 12 of the most influential and popular blogs with a focus on political news and foreign policy issues. As blogs grow in influence, it's important to know what the top bloggers are saying about key issues and to think about how you can incorporate them into your communications efforts. (The following descriptions/reviews were provided by Euro RSCG Magnet.

Just getting started. Here's a great 3 minute video introduction to blogs - how they work and why they are such a big deal.

(Blogs and Blogger Relations Chapter from Online Politics 101 - Download below)

Blogs, one-time sweet darlings of the political internet world. I can still remember the first time I figured out what a blog WAS, back in the spring of 2003 (I was at South by Southwest, listening to a presentation and no doubt recovering from a hangover).

...The new media landscape calls for new tactics and approaches to be added into the PR practitioner’s toolbox. Vocus spoke with four of the top blogging experts in the industry to get their insights on how today’s PR professionals can successfully incorporate blogger relations into their PR strategy.

Five Key Ways to Distribute Your News

Seven Success Strategies for Pitching to Bloggers

(Chicago--November 17, 2006) Pitching a story to a blogger on the Internet is a different animal than pitching to a print or broadcast reporter. Unlike the "traditional" media world, on the blogosphere you don't get to leverage your verbal agility to establish a relationship with a reporter over the phone first, and then ask if they'd like to see your press release. And you certainly can't spam World Wide Web bloggers with a single, impersonal press release that you've already emailed to the whole wide world.