PR community split over paying bloggers in PRWeek poll

Peter Hay, PR Week UK, 25 November 2009, 06:00am

PR professionals are divided over whether it is acceptable to pay bloggers for favourable coverage, according to a straw poll on prweek.com/uk.

Controversy: bloggers offered money by PR agencies

The issue caused a storm in the blogosphere last week, after the Blog Till You Drop site revealed how one blogger had been offered cash to write about a PR campaign.

This week's poll found a small majority of PR professionals agreeing that bloggers should not operate on such a 'pay per play' basis.

But a significant minority (43 per cent) believed that it was acceptable for bloggers to accept such payments. More than 100 PR professionals voted on the poll.

Robin Grant, MD of We Are Social, said: 'Bloggers are their own people and should write what they want. The results of the PRWeek poll only show the naivety towards social media in the PR industry; they haven't got their heads round it and aren't set up for it.'

Fernando Rizo, head of digital, Ketchum London, said: 'Should Ketchum London ever pay a blogger with-out being completely transparent, I will fall on my sword.'

Michelle McGlocklin, MD, technology practice, Weber Shandwick, said: 'I don't think it's right to say that PR professionals should never be allowed to pay bloggers.

'They just need to carefully weigh up whether what they're doing creates any real value.'

All Comments

Laurence Borel - 26 November 2009

As a blogger and a PR I am on both sides of the fence.

Yes it is hard to get coverage these days, and it is tempting to throw a few pounds at someone in exchange for a few kind words.

Bloggers who get paid to write blog posts might as well hand out their WordPress login details to PR agencies.

Would PRs agencies pay bloggers if coverage was negative? Unlikely.

Kerry Gaffney - 26 November 2009

I'm a blogger and a PR person too and I sit firmly on the side of the fence that says paying bloggers is wrong.

The USP of the PR industry is that earned media is far more valuable than paid for media, so why are we even discussing doing something that impinges on our main selling point - or are we feeling so sorry for our advertising chums and wish to give them some sort of pre-Christmas fillip?

Also, have we as an industry not yet learnt that transparency is key? How effective will the paid for post be if the blogger reveals that is an advert? Or worse, they don't reveal it but it comes out a later stage?

Mark Pinsent - 26 November 2009

Of course opinions here are always going to be subjective. Michelle's comment above \( 'I don't think it's right to say that PR professionals should never be allowed to pay bloggers.') seems to have created a bit of controversy on Twitter \(not least because some think it contravenes WS' own policy documents) but I think she's saying that, in the same way that you shouldn't ban PR companies from paying for media through advertorials, you shouldn't tell them they shouldn't be paying bloggers.

The question then becomes one of ethics, for both the PR company and the blogger.

The key things for me are:

- if you do pay a blogger to write something on your \(or your client's) behalf, it should be made absolutely clear that you have done so

- That being the case, the credibility of the piece \(and the blogger) can be judged in the same way that one would judge the credibility of an advertorial. In my view, advertorials are rarely very useful

Of course, should any payment for a blog post be covert then it is entirely unethical \(in exactly the same way that it would be for a journalist to accept payment for editorial).

James Warren - 26 November 2009

Weber Shandwick's global social media policy states that employees must 'Never pay an individual to influence what they write online'. Where financial assistance has been provided \(either for assisting with travel or the loan of a product etc), we insist on the blogger disclosing the fact \(and we provide suggested text to help them do that in as clear a way as possible). Michelle's comment is entirely valid - you can't stop people from doing it. But it's not something you'd ever find anyone from WS advocating \(I hope).

Brad Jordan - 11 December 2009

If the transparency of the 'sponsorship' is there, it's no different to Glenmorangie sponsoring a 10 page style guide in Esquire magazine, placing a heavy glass filled with scotch in the hand of an incredibly flashy looking chap between every article about mixing drinks and successful living.

Certainly the majority of generation Y, tech-savvy web 2.0 people, and increasingly the generation X's, are learning to look at such articles and take them with not a pinch, but a truck load of salt. The words 'sponsored article' or 'advertisement feature' in the top left hand of any page of a magazine cause me to skip past the article without a thought's notice, much like I find myself ignoring the majority of the adverts in the Metro each morning.

There's no question that the blogger and the company must be totally honest about what is going on. Individual bloggers have the faith of their readers, and that's what I, and I'm sure others like about independent blogs. There's no editor leaning on their shoulder to write specific stories, it's simply the view of a human being passed on to others.

Bloggers often spend much time and effort producing interesting content in an effort to increase their readership. And by accepting money to write what is effectively advertorial, they run the risk of \(much like the discarded central pages of the Metro) their readers skipping past their blog without a thought's notice.