The explorers also returned with good news to report! In the new Web 2.0 world, blogs create a positive impact on customer service and an ability to openly examine and deal with internal issues. Wikis are just plain efficient and social networks offer the leverage of crowd contact.

Our savvy client, Mercury Mambo, an Hispanic marketing team with Mambo flair, understands the opportunities that can be gained from sharing their deep expertise on the web through social media tools. While faced with exploring a corporate blog strategy, Matt Reyes shared a Forrester report with me that provided solid advice for proceeding with social media strategies.

The article reminds us to clarify your target audience’s social media habits and interests before building a strategy. Then your work will play to their current interests. Seems like a V8 moment, but no one wants to spend hours building a social media machine and then feeding it … only to find that no one is interested in it.

Accustomed to pushing information out, B2B marketers are going to have to get used to listening to what the communities want to pull in. As Laura Ramos of Forrester phrases it, “Social media use is about creating dialog and relationships with a community. The community says what is important, not the marketing folks.”

It’s part of the magic behind Bazaarvoice’s success. The company sets up rating systems that let consumers voice their preferences and companies learn from the consumer data. Bazaarvoice empowers companies to listen to the consumer opinion that is already there; it does not try to go in and push an agenda.

Listening has always been an important part of the sales process. Figuring out what consumers want and filling the need – this is the posture that companies will need to get comfortable with as they adapt to the new rules of doing business in an Enterprise 2.0 world.

Reporters and consumers are networked now and accustomed to news being delivered directly to their desktop. Citizen journalism exists; bloggers claim a distinct voice in news reporting as well. Social networks and conversational social media are places where consumers hang out online to get connected and to get their news.

In trying to understand how this has impacted public relations, we needed a panel that understood the transitions and transformations happening at todays newspapers. Our Interactive Austin panel had incredible experience in this area.

Jon Lebkowsky of Polycot Associates helped us to find the roots of the convergence of media in low cost social media applications spinning out of open source technologies.

Adam Weinroth of Pluck has worked with newspapers like USA Today, The Washington Post and Better Homes and Gardens as they have added social networking and Web 2.0 features and discussed the importance of management in having the vision to meet the new demands.

Stacey Higginbothan who has experienced the traditional needs of publications like the Austin Business Journal and also the GigaOM voiced her belief that PR people need to be both a “stalker and a concierge” in the world of new PR. She explained the reporters or even more overloaded with new publications and information overload. PR specialists need to stalk a reporter on the one hand, shadowing them and learning what is of interest to them on their beat and on the other – serve up the stories of interest.

Clint Howell of BusinessWire updated us on the social media press release and his client experiences with the SMPR template format, which has not been adopted as readily as many had hoped.

And, then the ever entertaining Omar Gallager, Digital Savant blog author, woke us all up with the realities that reporters face in keeping up with social media strategies and the demands or reporting. He sees hope for the local hometown papers like the Austin American-Statesman in the interest in the local story and in new niche markets, which often reach entirely untapped readership.

This conversation spun off into User Generated Content and other related topics, but this should give you’re the feel for the insight of the group. I personally found useful information from each of the panelist and walked away loving the fact that I live in a social media kind-of- town where experts like these will get together and share their expertise for the benefit of all.

My thanks to you all… when you see this post.