Recently a study was conducted on "The State of Blog Relations" by APCO Worldwide and the Council of Public Relations Firms. PR Week wrote an editorial, "Paying Bloggers Risks the Notion of 'Earned Media,'" based on one aspect of the study. PR execs and bloggers were asked to respond to this statement: It is okay to compensate bloggers for writing about my clients, but it is not up to me to tell them to disclose the payment."
PR execs disagreed (96%) with this statement. But 48% of bloggers agreed, and another 16% were neutral or had no opinion.
If you were approached by a company and offered $5,000 a month to write positively about their product(s), -- and let's say you didn't really care for the product -- would you 1) take the money; and 2) disclose to your readers that you were being paid?
5 comments:
Absolutely not because the company is unethical to even ask for such an arrangement. However, I fear many a blogger would because $5k is a lot of money for not doing much of anything, and buyer beware.
PR is a job like many others -- being a corporate shill is no sin anymore. If your blog was called, "They Pay Me to Praise Their Widgets" and that's what you did, what's the big deal? Unless you're plugging a faulty or deceptive product, I don't see the problem.
I would take take the money, but I'd also disclose that I'm being compensated for writing about the product.
I am with On The Mark.
First off, I am living off less than six hundred a month thanks to Ahnolds overhaul of the Workers Compensation division..so I could use that money really really REALLY bad.
Second..I value my ethics more than I value money...so if I didnt' like the product I wouldn't take the job. Whoring myself out isn't something I think I would be able to hold up head up about.
Which is why I am poverty-stricken and broke but very ethical. ;p
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