I missed half of the second session: had to send some mails but there was no WiFi at the conference and the Tata Indicom data card wasn’t detecting any network: in fact, am still struggling with connectivity for posting while in Mumbai. (Is Reliance any better?)

The second session at the IAMAI conference on Web 2.0 was moderated by Jaspreet Bindra, Country Manager, Windows Live and MSN India, and focused on the marketers perspective. Tarun Bangari, Head-Product Marketing for Akamai outlined the social media mix for marketers: creating ones own community, banner advertising on social networking sites (SNS), creating sponsored spaces on existing SNS, for CEOs and senior officers to start blogs, or working with thought leaders. Garima Chaudhry, Head- eAlliances for Citibank India emphasized the importance of listening to the customer. They’ve shied away from participating on blogs –users don’t want direct information. One is talking not to customer segments, but to individuals. It’s not easy to track CPL, so they’re trying to define a whole new set of metrics – how the users propensity changes, and understand how it leads to conversions.

Kiruba Shankar, the blogger on the panel, said that advertisers make the mistake of treating bloggers as just page views. He gave the example of Royal Enfield that initially that initially sponsored a Chennai bloggers meet, but also took 5 minutes of the meet for a marketing pitch. That worked against them, but they came back and offered people bikes to try for four days - people loved that. There were lots of good reviews on Enflield, and this is something that I’ve also endorsed in the past – look to create fans, and the rest takes care of itself. Shankar said that bloggers are anticipating the advent of Panama and MSN Adcenter, and kick Googles butt for more revenue share for bloggers.

Shailesh Rao, MD Google India said that marketing has gone from an expense to an investment. The job is to facilitate a conversation, but not to prescribe it. There is no control. Pushkar Sane, Head Asia for Starcom IP feels that people tend to believe blogs more. In organizations, people at the top and bottom are clued into blogs, but the people in the middle are the bottlenecks. Ratish Nair, CEO of Interactive Avenues listed adsense as one way to market on blogs without being intrusive.