An advocate's
Element on Flickr

Searching on YouTube or Flickr for a brand, one would likely find some of the best ads that never saw an agency, but were rather produced by brand advocates. The Honda Element has its own Flickr group, for example.
This small group of brand fans who, according to AdAge, half write about their purchases online, can have an exponentially greater influence on others. But what many brands don't know is how to use search and social media to to fully harness this powerful group - and that not trying too hard is key.

CompUSA, for one, has been working with BazaarVoice, which helps brands add user reviews to their site, so that searches for "sony" along with "review" point users to the user section of the retailer's site - making sales conversion soar 60 percent.

Stan Joosten, innovation manager at Procter & Gamble, is quoted as saying brands should stop fearing spontaneous chatter online because it's actually much more positive than a marketer might assume, and warned of trying too hard.

"There's a stronger impact when you do it wrong in social media than when you mess up in a TV commercial," he said, because it's more personal. Imagine, "if I threw a dinner party and then tried to sell you Tupperware afterward. You'd never come back."