• Information Week, Thursday, January 19, 2006 12:30 PM

Marketers are finding out that blogs and other online media can be a valuable tool in discovering what consumers like, and don't like, about their products. Blogs can also be used as marketing vehicles to help a company create buzz about its products or services. Some companies have created their own blogs and paid people to act as advocates on their behalf. For example, the Pennsylvania Tourism Office last summer recruited six people to travel around the state on weekend trips and picked up the tab, up to $1,000 per excursion. In return, the travelers were expected to blog about their experiences and upload the photos and videos they took. From a publicity perspective, the tourism project was a stroke of genius, according to David Heidenreich, vice president of strategy and online planning for Ripple Effects Interactive, a Web advertising firm that conducted the campaign. Ripple Effects did a little promotion work within the PR industry, but word of mouth spread quickly, culminating in mentions on mainstream media outlets like CNN and the Associated Press. "That buzz started at the underground level and Reuters picked it up and it went national," Heidenreich says.

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