Compensation of Bloggers

“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 executives demonstrated virtually unanimous disagreement with the statement. A plurality of bloggers (48 percent) agreed with the statement and another 16 percent were either neutral or had no opinion.

This issue also merits more investigation. These responses may reflect a disagreement over whether a PR professional can or should dictate the terms of disclosure; in other words, bloggers may be telling the PR industry that they alone are in charge of what is posted on a blog – or it may be a larger question of transparency.