Often, employees are encouraged to contribute to the blog. The end idea, of course, is to boost sales. “About a third of our sales is an indirect result of the company blog,” says Pramod Harith, a marketing manager at MeritTrac Services. MeritTrac is a job skills assessment company whose blog encourages feedback from students and employees on their “test-taking” experiences.

In an age when expensive advertising channels seem less and less able to move the needle, blogs and online forums have the added advantage of being virtually free. With smaller companies having negligible advertising budgets, such digital methods have come as a great help.

Besides the cost factor, what makes web-based buzz marketing tick is the credibility it commands. Instead of coming from a faceless corporate channel, “buzz” message comes from the most trusted endorser — the end-user.

The method also helps in another challenging area, attracting employees. Companies like Frito Lays routinely blog about work-culture to win the much-talked-about “war for talent”.

“If you have to reach out to next generation of workers, you have to be interactive and demystify yourself... It acts as a key differentiator,” says blog consultant Gautam Ghosh. The web is also seen as the most accessible way to reach customers spread across diverse geographies, Ghosh says.

While the online advertising and marketing industry is currently valued at Rs 280 crore, industry-watchers expect it to grow to Rs 500 crore by 2010.

Despite the “buzz”, however, experts caution that ethical issues related to blogging need to be addressed as well. “The moderator has to ensure that all viewpoints — both positive and negative — are reflected on the site and that employees are not coerced to write for blogs,” says Leroy Alvares of Tribal DDB, a digital marketing agency.