Two days ago Forrester published a new study on “How To Derive Value From B2B Blogging” (June 10, 2008).
The study was made by Laura Ramos with Bradford J. Holmes, Charlene Li, Jeremiah K. Owyang and Christina Lee.

From the table of contents:
Four Blog Strategies Produce Community Marketing Value

Strategy One:
Be A Conversation Starter, Not A Spoiler
Strategy Two:
Make Blog Content Entertaining, Easy To Digest And To Use
Strategy Three:
Connect The Dots Between Events And Community Involvement
Strategy Four:
Invite Thought Leaders, But Coach Them On Community Etiquette

After marketers admitted that blogging failed to deliver desired results, the study pleads for giving B2B-blogging a second chance: B2B-blogging supports future community marketing success.

Executive Summary:
“The number of business-to-business (B2B) firms that started blogging in 2007 plummeted compared with 2006 as corporate bloggers ran into roadblocks stemming from a misalignment between invested effort and expected returns. Rather than cross blogging off of the marketing communication list, B2B marketers would do better to embrace one of the four strategies prominently used by bloggers to attract readers, build conversations, and engage community members in sharing their experiences with their online peers.”

Bottom line: Engaging customer communities in conversations is [still] the key.

Supplementation:
Social Media to Weather Recession

Adweek  on a report from Forrester on Feb 6, 2008:
[Strategies For Interactive Marketing In A Recession - Unlike Last Time, Results-Based Marketing And Social Applications Could Thrive - by Josh Bernoff]

“According to the Forrester Research report marketer moves into areas like word of mouth, blogging and social networking will withstand tightened budgets. In contrast, marketers are likely to decrease spending in traditional media and even online vehicles geared to building brand awareness. Those findings stand in contrast to the previous economic downturn, when spending on Internet advertising
cratered as marketers turned to tried-and-true media.

For example, Forrester found that Procter & Gamble’s BeingGirl.com, an online community for adolescent girls, is four times as effective as a similarly priced marketing program in traditional media. Initiatives like BeingGirl.com require a long-term commitment, Bernoff pointed out.”

So let’s start that next high quality wisdom of the crowds special interest portal community with loads of high quality video, killer visualization engines and ugc optimization tools. That’s what we say.

“The basic idea of this site is that a brand exists entirely in people’s heads. Therefore, whatever it is they say a brand is, is what it is. 940,000+ tags and counting.”

http://www.brandtags.net/

Example McDonalds BrandTags: http://www.brandtags.net/browselt.php?id=47