The past two days, I’ve attended InnoTech’s eMarketing Summit in Portland, Oregon. I found many of the presenters and sessions interesting and insightful. Coincidentally, I’ve been reading Small is the New Big by Seth Godin, which covers many of the topics discussed during the two day conference. The primary theme was transparency in marketing.

Now more than ever, consumers are in the driver seat when it comes to owning brands and filtering marketing messages. The Web empowers consumers in a variety of ways, one of the most important being the ability to rapidly and easily research any product, service or company.

With Web 1.0, the information flow was company to consumer. With Web 2.0, information flow is multi-directional: company to consumer, consumer to company and consumer to consumer. The most powerful conversations are not happening between companies, but between consumers. The brands that understand this pattern are ultimately going to thrive.

Online communities like YouTube, Blogger and Wikipedia create new opportunities and challenges for corporations. Monitoring hundreds of consumer-generated media sites is extremely challenging, and knowing if, when and how to act on the information requires a light touch not normally found in corporate executive offices.

Rather than holding emergency meetings with lawyers, marketers and operations to strategize ways to regulate social media sites, companies should spend more time understanding the tremendous opportunity. By simply monitoring and slowly engaging in relevant communities has a compounding positive effect for Web 2.0-savvy companies.

Start by automating information distribution, utilizing tools like blogs, RSS, wiki and podcasting. Existing content can be formatted and passed along automatically via XML to people that want it, when they want it, in the format they want it. They, in turn, will pass the information along to other constituents.

By relinquishing some control and allowing your customers, partners and peers a voice, you garner tremendous trust and respect. The direct connection with the customer/consumer breaks down traditional corporate barriers and turns customers into evangelists.

Enabling your best customers to spread the word is perhaps the most affordable and effective form of marketing available today. Instead, larger companies are putting roadblocks up in the form of legal policies and procedures that prevent a meaningful connection.

Start today by reaching out to your constituents via online communities and start a conversation. All conversations are opportunities for insight and engagement. The interactions create meaning for the customers and reform their perceptions of your brand. All without the cost of a big ad campaign, focus groups or campy promotions.

The resulting emotional connection and sense of affiliation will shore up your customer-base and provide a variety of fringe benefits like improved products and services. Let your customers become your evangelists and doing so requires total transparency.

Tags: innotech, emarketing summit, naked marketing, transparency, kent lewis, social media, web 2.0, online community