Blog Marketing- can you?

Or should I rephrase and state that today, as marketers look at the noise, BUZZ, mindspace that blogs, bloggers and blogosphere occupy- it's very, very difficult to look away!

As a marketer, the first thought I get is Wow! now how can I get in my brand into this conversation? and here I'm going to suggest an approach completely contrary to what the Social Media experts I've been reading are saying!

Sorry, Mack, Gaurav , Chris!
Though I agree with Chris' common sense approach- Marketing is a discipline, Social Media is a tool! and so on.
The critical difference is actually the "conversation" that is possible when a lot of people are posting comments on your blog and when a lot of blogs are connecting in to you, and generating a "global conversation!"

Truth is- success for a marketer is to get the brand, its key ethos, its "keywords" into the conversation- that's right, Social Media is the step before Google! There I've said it!

In the web2.0 world, where your first attempt at any experience is to Google for information and then stumbleupon brands, as a brand marketer you should be creating the keywords out of the social media conversations.

If you engage with your audience early enough, if you listen enough and you interact enough, as individuals, and professionals, you will know that it is
A. easy to succeed in building relationships that can contribute the crucial early adopters in any brand success
B. Really tough to try and BS your way through, imagining yourself as the crucial spokesperson representing a global brand- sorry Blog Council- most of your members will continue to be flamed by bloggers who want a conversation, not the 10 brand positioning statements you bring down every quarter or product launch time from corporate HQ!

I can go on, but the crucial question to ask yourself and your marketing team is this! Do you believe in your brand enough to have a "conversation" with anyone else? as the old adage goes, even in this Brand 2.0 world, people buy from people!

Check out Dell's Ideastorm- Direct from Michael Dell :-)