The results of the PR Week online poll will no doubt cause much hand-wringing in the industry and, particularly, amongst the social media chattering classes.
In answer to the question, "Should brands/PROs be able to pay bloggers for coverage?" 63% of people said "yes".
It's the right answer. Of course they should be allowed to. In the same way that brands and PROs are able to pay traditional media for coverage. We call them advertorials. The crucial point is that advertorials are always marked as such and, therefore, their impartiality, influence and trustworthiness is diminished. The same should be the case for bloggers. Where they've been paid to write something, they should say so. We can all then take what they write with an enormous pinch of salt.
Perhaps it's a lesson in writing a useful survey question?
Mark Pinsent 