Companies are catching on to the fact that bloggers can provide an effective way to create buzz about their brands. We've seen several efforts that explicitly recognise that fact, such as TasteCasting for restaurants and YokmoK's free travel giveaways. Bringing the notion into the world of new consumer products is Swagapalooza, an invitation-only event that gives influential bloggers free samples of new products.

Created by Bay Area startup Launch Hear, Swagapalooza aims to give entrepreneurs a way to get their producs in front of the most-followed bloggers and tweeters from across the United States. The first event was held in New York in September last year. At it, brands including Surprise Industries, Idea Paint and Switch2Health—which, coincidentally, we just covered—had the chance to make presentations to the select audience of 100 bloggers, 20 Twitterers and 5 Redditors. In exchange for their participation, the audience members were entitled to free samples of any of the products being presented. A detailed review of the event is available on AdAge.

Spotted by: Jody Turner

is your niche more regional or local? we would be willing to facilitate the local bloggers, tweeters and social media evangelists at a localized version. leave a comment or email me craigdcrook [at] gmail.com