Glad to report I am indeed following the conversation! Tuesday evening certainly gave me food for thought about 'what to do next' and I immediately scheduled in a brainstorm with our brand manager and online marketing manager the next day about how we can incorporate 'blogger relations' in to marketing and PR strategy.

I had previously been rather stuck on how to 'speak' to these people, but now have several ideas. Unlike the media, its obviously pretty impossible in most cases to get contact details for bloggers, which had me stumped before about how to communicate with them, other than submitting a post to their site (which may or may not get published).

But this event got me thinking that perhaps, as we can't email or call these people, perhaps we should start using other PR tools to strike up a dialogue – briefings, events, lunches etc… – something which most companies have, up til now, probably only considered doing with the 'professionals'.

But as Tuesday's event showed, there are undeniably now huge networks of 'consumer journalists' who are writing about us whether we like it or not. So why not start including them in our traditional 'media' campaigns and inviting key bloggers to briefings and events?

Someone made the good point that its about not being scared to relinquish control. What if you invite them along, and then they write a negative post? – but if they're going to write about you anyway – what's the harm? At least you would get to 'present your case' first. Now we just have to convince the guys at the top to let go.