I recently spoke to a brand that sells women’s products, and told me that a few bloggers approached them to sponsor their travel costs to attend uber popular Blogher. This particular brand didn’t accept the offer, but I do know of others, such as Intel sponsoring the lovely Sarah Austin (I’ve been on her video) to attend SXSW, likable Chris Brogan was sponsored to attend CES.  They aren’t alone see this ever growing list of bloggers and brands that are involved in exchanging products, services, and even money for editorial influence.

Bloggers, which have been receiving an incredible amount of attention as the new influencers continue to grow in importance. Reading about the events at Blogher, it’s clear that brands are kowtowing to these household influencers and offering them products, samples, and other events. It’s not just the women bloggers category, but all over, tech bloggers are now part of the regular media/PR outreach list for tech, security, and device conferences.

As the demand for bloggers increases, I can only draw simulatities from other places. It’s common for authors who want to get on speakers’ circuit to have a speakers agent. we should expect a bloggers’ agent to appear that represents top bloggers to brands, conferences, and beyond. In some regard, Federated Media, Glam, and Blogher do this to a limited degree, but we should expect brands to be contacted by a media representative (like celebrities do) to approach the marketing department of brands.

Takeaways

• Bloggers to continue to make creating content a full-time position.
• Expect bloggers agents to appear that represent bloggers to brands.
• A new agency will be built, these blogger agents will make a living –but likely not get rich.
• More blog posts to appear that will have to be indicated they are sponsored.
• The FTC to continue to sniff this area, and put some rules in place to what this means

Chime in below, what do you think of this concept, as a blogger, a brand, a conference organizer, or as a spectator.

I spent Sunday afternoon with my good friend Matt (he’s left a comment below), who’s a true internet marketer, and approaches social tools like that too, looking for direct and immediate returns.

He was talking about how to generate direct revenue through a blog, and quoted John Chow, who is generating 40k a month through lead generation, advertising, and other ways to move people through the funnel. He uses auto-responders in email and Twitter (he sent me one after I followed him on Twitter yesterday) to keep people hooked and sells products in the auto responders –this is basically turining social tools into email, which fuels affiliate and direct marketing which fuels ecommerce.

In his video, John says that social media marketers believe that monetizing the social web is wrong, and I’d actually disagree. Making money from social is fine, however there’s two ways to do it:

1) This first way is up front, with ads, direct marketing and ecommerce. I see many bloggers monetizing their blog through direct monetization, Guy, Scoble, and most authors of blogging books have ads, sponsorship or other revenue methods attached to their blogs.

2) The second way is to use it to become a trusted influencer, that is used for the soft sell: build relatioships, trust, and influence over time. These people make money by getting gigs, consulting, or developing leads for their employer. That’s my current approach.

So which way is right? Fast or slow?  Either way works, it depends on your goals and audience. The one theme that works between both is: Having content that attracts your audience (you need to be a good blogger, regardless), have a strategy to move people closer to you, be up front about your intentions.

In the end, like a hammer, these social tools can be used in different ways and for different purposes, it’s fascinating to watch the unique approaches.