I attended the TEDGlobal 2010 conference in Oxford recently, where leading thinkers shared ideas with a similar belief and openness in the way they connect. The two make a good mix that marketers can use to refine their online strategies.

The YouGov survey we commissioned this year as part of the Tamar Search Attitudes series shows how UK consumers across all age groups are evolving online. They use third-party reviews because they trust them, mobile search continues to grow explosively, especially among the young and privacy fears are evident but people can see the benefits of ‘opening up’.

People also overwhelmingly trust and follow natural search links, rather than ‘paid-for’ returns. These embedded attitudes towards finding brand information online means that marketers have been given a clearer signal about ways to manage their brands’ online reputations.

As consumers develop their understanding of how search engines work and access product/service information through different devices, brands do have to be more accessible, useful and relevant. How many company websites do we currently access via mobile that damage the brand because they have not addressed the platform to deliver the best experience?

Whether it’s a mobile app or a web development strategy that delivers content based on the viewing device, the driver is the same – connecting, convincing and converting the people who have searched for your products and services.

It’s the direct route to brand management but we know that companies also need to take a wider view and talk with consumers on the ‘indirect playing field’, leading with brave ideas, challenging the impractical and forming newer ways to understand what makes a successful brand.

Though the way individuals and brands manage their reputation is very different, the TED conference was full of brave, exciting risk-takers in their fields and the challenge is how to take that spirit of innovation and ‘just try it’ back into the to corporate world.

We’ve seen two examples in the past month that show how ‘being brave’ is a brand winner- the Old Spice Twitter takeover and the Home Retail Group stop-motion annual report.  Both of these demonstrate that ideas, concepts and inspiration come from unconventional sources – a constant theme at TED.

If you want to build out a new brand campaign, there’s less to lose and more to gain by feeding TED’s ideas into your online conversations, including examinations of ‘happiness’, the human condition, sustainability and the theme of ‘generosity’.

Internal brand communities have to share and pool brave ideas, so why not encourage them to engage through social media? As they do, they will draw inputs from their customers on product/services that will beat any data from expensive boffins in R&D departments.

I talk with many people in the UK who profess to think this way, but is anyone really doing it? It’s time to walk the talk and stride or be denied.

Tanya is the founder and managing director of Tamar.