Brand Central Station

Astroturfing is bad … and there are plenty of published floggings of PR firms guilty of “over-enthusiastic” shilling for clients.  Enough, in fact, that many PR folks are viewed with disdain by journalists and bloggers.

There’s no doubt that PR firms that plant good reviews on blogs, write letters to the editor in support of their clients, etc. – and don’t identify themselves as agents for their clients are stepping over an ethical line.  But what do you do when you find bloggers (and journalists) who offer to provide positive reviews and/or coverage at a price?

Danny Brown, social media maverick and PR guy, posted an example of this on his weblog yesterday and it deserves further review and comment.

Here’s how Danny related the experience:

I was speaking with a very good friend of mine who runs her own PR agency. She’s established a terrific reputation as one of the best PR people around and has deservedly won awards for her approach. Simply put, she’s a role model for great PR.

We were talking about the relationship between bloggers and PR and how we can improve it (”we” being both the blogosphere and the PR industry). This was when my friend shared one of her examples as to why that improvement might be further off than hoped.

She was working with a client whose core audience were “mommy bloggers”. The client’s product was ideally suited to the thousands of moms that have families of their own and blog about products in that niche. So, it would make sense for the PR campaign to connect with the blogging audience it’s suited to. So far, so good.

When my friend approached some of the key bloggers in this field, she had this response: “It’s $75 for a positive review, $100 if there’s an image attached.” When my friend queried this, she was told, “Get your client to splash the cash. If you’re getting paid, we want [to get] paid too.”

Now don’t be alarmed.  This is actually a pretty common practice in places like Russia and China – there it’s known as “black PR”.  But there’s no doubt this blogger’s idea of a “revenue model” for his/her site is a bit out of bounds in this country.

Clients shouldn’t fall for this and neither should their PR firms.  In fact, I’m of the opinion that bloggers (and reporters) who resort to extortion should be exposed by name.  My buddies Kevin Dugan (with his Bad Pitch Blog) and Peter Shankman (at HARO) have both been known to take draconian measures with PR firms who step over the line.  Danny should have done the same.

The fact that he didn’t doesn’t mean this isn’t a serious problem that deserves attention, though.  Be aware that these kinds of scammers exist out there on the web – just like they do in print, in the world of infomercials, behind the desk at fly-by-night loan companies and everywhere else in the world.  Don’t give in to extortion in the name of positive press. 

It’s a bad investment in your brand’s future.