With some of the recent attention towards blog relations, there’s no question that buzz marketing through blogs and similar consumer generated media is on the rise. Blogs are many things including marketing tools for business and also voices to be heard – consumer voices that provide insight into a marketplace. Availability and ease of communications along with creative tools make consumer generated media (CGM) a force to be reckoned with.

Recently Al Gore’s Current TV announced that they are looking for consumers to create commercials for its commercial sponsors (AdJab). I think you’ll see more of that as marketers and consumers embrace the medium.

At the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York last week, Rebecca Lieb of ClickZ moderated a session including Dave Balter from BzzAgent, Pete Blackshaw from Nielsen BuzzMetrics (Intelliseek) and Jim Nail of Cymfony who presented on creating and measuring buzz using blogs and word of mouth (WOM).

Some interesting stats and insights from the session:

• According to a study by McKinsey, two thirds of the U.S. economy is influenced by word of mouth.
• 50% of negative WOM happens because of a feeling of injustice on behalf on the value of the brand.
• Blogs are indexed at a faster rate and will enter search results more quickly. Brands have an oppotunity to leverage this to acquire more “shelf space” in the search results.
• Just because journalists are not writing about an issue or event, doesn’t mean it’s not being talked about.

Overall it was an excellent session. Here are notes on the entire session on CGM and Blog Buzz.