« Tom DeLay: From Hammer To Blogger | Main | Online Firepower For Barack Obama »
December 12, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
Word-Of-Mouth Marketing By Blog
The Word Of Mouth Marketing Association is meeting in Washington today and tomorrow, and the group offered to pay the way of select bloggers to cover the event.
Here is the invitation from the WOMMA Web site:
We're looking for a few great full-time bloggers to thoroughly cover the conference. Write everything you see and hear -- we won't get in your way, and yes, you can cross-post to your own blog. We'll pick up your hotel stay, but you're on your own to get to Washington, D.C.
Today's agenda also included what is becoming an increasingly standard discussion on blogging: "Are Bloggers Journalists: The Politics Of Blogging." The speakers were David Armon of PR Newswire, Henry Copeland of Blogads and Julia Hood of PRWeek.
The questions they were supposed to answer: When are bloggers acting as journalists? Should bloggers enjoy freedom of the press? When must bloggers demonstrate journalistic accountability? Do anonymous bloggers deserve press privileges, or is free speech protection conditional on disclosure?
Tomorrow's schedule includes a session on "blogger relations" that will tackle tthical guidelines for working with bloggers, the role of marketers in blog conversations, the appropriate approach to commenting on blogs, and contacting bloggers with story ideas. And another session will focus on how to create and use blogs to spread messages by word of mouth.
Coincidentally or not, the FTC yesterday announced during the week of the WOMMA event that companies using the Internet and other methods for paid word-of-mouth marketing must disclose those relationships. The Washington Post reported that the advertising approach can take any form of peer-to-peer communication, such as blog postings or MySpace pages for a movie character.
WOMMA lauded the FTC in a press release, noting that the agency appears to understand "the distinctions between buzz marketing, which is a legitimate marketing tactic and strategy, and stealth marketing, a practice we strongly condemn and oppose."
Posted by Danny | 04:07 PM
