Putting on my publisher hat: Kraft Canada keynote and "In Women We Trust"

Since my BlogHer co-founder Jory's finally taking her delayed honeymoon, I got the opportunity to travel to Toronto yesterday and keynote Kraft Canada's Innovation Day (which impressed my kids, as you can imagine). While en route, I typed answers to some questions about marketing to women online from Mary Hunt, the blogger behind In Women We Trust.

I was impressed by the questions I got from both Hunt and the team at Kraft Canada -- who clearly see that marketing is being reborn as a customer-centered craft. My big message was, as always, that brand credibility is now determined by how your content (brand, product, message and representatives) present in the new consumer-centric distributed media model -- not just in print, on-air or even on your Web site. Hunt's questions get into the details I shared at Kraft about the approach we recommend to BlogHer Ad Network sponsors:

MARY: Companies are trying to understand the women's market as well as social media. As a mega blogger and also a moderator of the BlogHer Ad network; what key issues perk to the top of conversations over and over. What can companies learn from them if they want to be best friends with these outspoken women?

LISA: What do women online want from companies? I recommend that companies ask, don't tell. Companies who want to establish great relationships with women online will spend most of their time listening. Effective companies will appreciate -- or be willing to learn -- that women who blog don't fit a single stereotype by subject or budget. 

The 9,000-plus blogs in BlogHer's growing blog directory are proof that women are writing about everything under the sun. Successful companies will also restrain themselves from SPAMing women online with commercial messages we didn't ask for. Instead, I recommend any enterprise -- from media initiatives to consumer products -- directly support bloggers and what interests us. Sponsor our blogs. Be respectful about the types of advertising you bring to blogs (hit the monkey? no thanks). Ask us to join your conversation on a blog too. Just be sure to tell online consumers:  

• Who you are
  
• What you're doing
  
• Why you're doing it      

Transparency is the key to the social media queendom. And because women are the power users of Web 2.0, I use that term deliberately....

Read the whole thing here.