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Highly recommended reading: The new womma whitepaper Word of Mouth 101 -- An Introduction to Word of Mouth Marketing (pdf).

The paper states that "Word of mouth can't be faked or invented. Attempting to fake word of mouth is unethical and creates a backlash, damages the brand, and tarnishes the corporate reputation. Legitimate word of mouth marketing acknowledges consumers' intelligence -- it never attempts to fool them." Like music to my ears.

Among the different types of Word of Mouth Marketing we of course find blogs. Brand blogging, they say, means "Creating blogs and participating in the blogosphere, in the spirit of open, transparent communications; sharing information of value that the blog community may talk about."

Listed as an example of unethical Word of Mouth strategies we find for example comment spam. But let's not focus on the bad sides. The positive strategies are:

1. Encouraging communications
2. Giving people something to talk about
3. Creating communities and connecting people
4. Working with influential communities
5. Creating evangelist or advocate programs
6. Researching and listening to customer feedback
7. Engaging in transparent conversation
8. Co-creation and information sharing

Again, blogs are obvious tools. #7, #6, #3 could all fit into a blog strategy, as could the others (depending on how they are defined more in detail).

Thanks DurnikBlog for the link.

Fredrik Wacka is the author and founder of the popular CorporateBlogging.Info blog which is a guide to business and corporate blogging. Visit Fredrik Wacka's blog: CorporateBlogging.Info.