Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

From WSJ - Marketers Scan Blogs for Branding

Many marketers suspect there are probably some valuable insights contained in the Web logs produced by the estimated 12 million online diarists. But in the cacophony of trivia, vitriol and bombast that fills the blogosphere, useful nuggets have been hard to find.

Now, a growing number of marketers are using new technology to analyze blogs and other “consumer-generated media” — a category that includes chat groups, message boards and electronic forums — to hear what is being said online about new products, old ad campaigns and aging brands. Purveyors of the new methodology and their clients say blog-watching can be cheaper, faster and less biased than such staples of consumer research as focus groups and surveys.

I know I’ve gotten comments on this youngster blog from both Intuit and Buzzoodle when we talked about their companies. And, my blog, name, and web site have shown up all over the virtual world (viral marketing in action). Sure, there are a lot of navel gazers out in blogland, who think we’re equally fascinated with their anatomy - but it’s also a huge village of all types of people who are buzzing about millions of topics - and could well be talking about you.