Chris Abraham has a terrific post addressing this question over on Business 2 Community. Go read it.

As to the central question Chris poses: Blogger outreach is, hands down, earned media. Oh, and by the way: If you’re going to be doing outreach, do it right. Anti-Social Media has some good advice.

Takeaway for marketers: Sure, you can buy blogger coverage, but by doing so you’re effectively buying lousy ads; the best result of blogger outreach is unbiased positive coverage of your product or service.

“A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.”
—W. C. Fields

Erik Sass over on MediaPost gives us 9 reasons why we should. I don’t know about you, but even though I believe in the principle of everything in moderation (even Facebook and Twitter), I find some of them pretty compelling.

(Hat tip to Barbara for the heads up on this one.)

Olympic gymnastics … from the 1924 Games in Paris.

I’m not sure which is nuttier: The idea that Facebook is pushing for a “like” to be considered free speech (All Facebook reports), or that someone would be fired from their job for liking a business on Facebook, even if that business is a competitor.

Takeaway for marketers: Anyone worth their social media salt is liking every imaginable competitor they can find on Facebook to see what they’re up to. Just sayin’.