Red Herring: How to build buzz on the blogs

Red Herring has a short, but informative article about weblogs as a tool for business or marketing (via Klaus Eck):

Instead of dealing with finicky newspaper and magazine reporters on volatile deadlines, Weblogs – self-published, and often opinionated, Web pages updated by individuals or groups of bloggers – give entrepreneurs a way to communicate directly with potential customers. (...)

They give seven essential tips on how to make waves in the blogsphere – without capsizing:

1. Don't ignore, but pay respect to key bloggers
   
2. Keep track of what bloggers are saying about your company and its products.
   
3. Build personal relationships, e.g. through leaving thoughtful comments in other weblogs
   
4. Stick to subjects associated to your area of business
   
5. Become an active participant in the blogsphere – by starting your own blog...
   
6. …but not just for publicity, because bloggers can smell a rat
   
7. Last, but not least: Be Honest !!

And just in case, you need a reason for why to care about weblogs in the first place, keep in mind that...

..."Blogs influence the influencers."