Geoff Patton, online editor at The Reporter, speaks to local high school athletes about blogging in the Community Media Lab. Photo by Andy Stettler

The Reporter would like to invite all of our community bloggers and would-be bloggers to join us for a casual meet-and-greet at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 23 in our Community Media Lab in The Reporter newsroom at 307 Derstine Ave., Lansdale.

Over the past few months, we've met many of you on Twitter, Facebook, email and on the phone. We've had great conversation about how to make our blogs better with stronger content. Now we would like to meet you in person to talk about your blogs, what you're working on and how we or other local bloggers can help.

First Twitter, then Facebook and now Google+. Most readers will note that we have adapted well to social media. Our newsroom is focused on alerting our community to the latest breaking news and events using our social media outlets. Now we've added another outlet.

Here's a video introduction to Google+

How to create a Circle and add The Reporter

Twitter allows users to create "lists" which can be used to categorize followers. Google+ has something similar titled "Circles."

To optimize the way you follow The Reporter on Google+ (and really any news publication) we recommend that you create a "News" circle and add us to that circle along with any other news sources on Plus.

Google+ allows users to choose which streams you would like to follow. On Facebook, most users follow a general news feed of their friends and followers. On Google+ you can select to watch your "Friends Circle" feed or only your "Co-workers Circle" feed.

Or feel free to just add us to your Friends Circle. :)

Here is a quick video introduction to Circles

Thanks to everyone who took part in The Reporter's Local Business Chat!
This week we discussed how local/small businesses can use social media to engage clients/customers. We also moved into QRcode use and blogging use.

Below is the replay of the chat but we would really like to hear what next week's topic should be. Leave us a comment and offer your ideas. See you next week!

Attention local business owners! Join us for The Reporter’s Local Business Chat this Thursday at noon to converse and learn about how other businesses in our area are using social media, websites and other forms of digital business innovation in a conversational setting on Twitter.

How does #RLBchat works?

The Reporter Local Business Chat will follow a few simple rules:

- In order to take part in the chat,  add #RLBchat to the end of each of your tweets.

- Five questions will be asked, one every 10 minutes. The questions will be based around how local businesses are using digital tools like Twitter, Facebook, blogging services, etc., to increase business.

- Feel free to tweet in as much as you would like but please be respectful to others and try not to overwhelm the Twitter feed by tweeting too much. Of course, please do not use inappropriate language.

For more information, contact assistant online editor Andy Stettler at astettler@thereporteronline.com