Mike Melanson asks “Does your PR firm need a PR firm” in a post on ReadWriteWeb.

Mike bemoans the crass “carpet bombing strategies” used by some PR firms, as reported by VC Jason Mendelson. These firms have simply added bloggers to their lists of victims for mass email blasts.

I bet they brag about being social-media-savvy.

The irony is that they are missing the real opportunity of social media for what we call “influencer relations.” Social media is all about sharing, not broadcasting. If you have information of value to share, you can maintain a relationship with an influencer.

Twenty years ago, you could only befriend journalists by socializing with them at events or taking them to dinner. I know, I was a journalist once and had some great meals on the corporate dime. One reason I took up running.

Now journalists write blogs and appreciate insightful comments. They use Twitter and appreciate responses and retweets that add value to the topics they cover. It’s not that hard to maintain an ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship – if you know what you’re talking about!

So when your PR agency talks about how many bloggers they have in their email database, it may be a sign they don’t know what they’re talking about.

[Note: McBru has sponsored this post.]

A recent report from analyst firm Forrester endorsed a policy of paying bloggers for “sponsored conversations,” the exchange of goods or credit for blog coverage. In the report, “Add Sponsored Conversations to Your Toolbox,” Forrester advises marketers to take advantage of sponsored conversation as a means to engage online communities.

The blog purists, on the other hand, say the industry is starting down a slippery slope.

For example, Marshall Kirkpatrick expressed well-measured concern in the ReadWriteWeb blog. “The prospect of this young media being overrun with ‘pay for play’ pseudo-shilling is not an attractive one to us.” He admits that paying bloggers is a “complicated question,” explaining how ReadWriteWeb draws the line at  “sponsored posts” written by its advertisers.

Given that this is a controversial and hazardous practice, we believe that fellow high-tech marketers should proceed with caution. (McBru, for one, has never sponsored a blogger or journalist.)

In the words of the report’s author, Forrester’s Sean Corcoran, “This practice makes the most sense for marketers with low awareness and/or little buzz but do have confidence in their brand.” If you find your product or service fits that definition, you may want to take the risk, namely a potential backlash against your brand and credibility problems for the bloggers you’ve chosen.

You can control that risk by following Forrester’s guidance about transparency and authenticity:

• Sponsorship transparency means making it crystal clear to the reader that the blog content is paid content.
• Blogger authenticity gives the blogger complete freedom to use his or her own voice and point of view, even if you perceive it as negative.

If you must take this risky road, choose your opportunities on a case-by-case basis. The more credibility a blogger has, the more his or her review of your product can help (or hurt) your company: at the same time, the more careful he or she will be about accepting a sponsored conversation. If your product or service aligns closely with the blogger’s editorial focus, you are more likely to find the common ground to proceed.

For more established companies, products or services, we prefer to follow our well-defined alternative approach. Similar to media relations, this practice builds long-term relationships with influential bloggers so we can help our clients communicate effectively with them. This removes any stigma associated with sponsorship. Authenticity remains the purview of the blogger.

We are curious to see how this issue plays out. We respect the need for bloggers to make a living. But, like Kirkpatrick, we’d hate to see the end of the independence that makes the blogosphere such a refreshing alternative to traditional high-tech media channels.

For more reading on the subject, Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang provides a list of examples of sponsored conversations as well as his view of the matter.

P.S. Kirkpatrick gets the “Best Subhead of the Month” award for scribing “How Much Marketing Would a Marketing Blogger Blog About If A Marketing Blogger Could Market Marketing?”

A study this year from the Society for New Communications Research really hones in on how, these days, press releases are now used by many to target bloggers and customers in addition to the traditional targeting of journalists and media outlets. Of the 420 marketing and public relations professionals surveyed, 73 percent indicated that it is “important to very important” to reach traditional media via their online press releases while 67.7 percent indicated that it is the same degree of importance held to reach bloggers and new media outlets. Pretty cool if you ask me.

China is paying an army of bloggers, “an estimated 300,000,” to post positively about its government, according to an article by Malik Fareed in the Guardian, “China joins a turf war.”  The article shows how this practice, dubbed astroturfing, is also used by corporations with varying degrees of success.  While astroturfing has been around for decades, the anonymity and reach of the Web 2.0 expand its poisonous impact, particularly in politics.

In making the point about the danger in astroturfing online, the article quotes unnamed PR source as saying “any time you play fast-and-loose with transparency you risk your reputation.”  Hold it: unnamed source discussing transparency?

Anyway, the point still holds: transparency is the foundation for communication and trust in PR 2.0.  There are responsible ways to engage industry influencers and customers in online dialog.  When it comes to building a strong foundation with your audience, astroturfing just doesn’t cover it.

AstroTurf, a registered trademark of Textile Management Associates, Inc., has joined Spam®, a registered trademark of Hormel Foods, LLC, as another brand unfortunately associated with unscrupulous online activities.