A couple of years ago, I wrote a series of posts on Marketing Conversation regarding the use of blogger relations programs.  There was some controversy then, as there is today, about their legitimacy and transparency.  We’re always going to have the sleeze factor - companies and agencies that set up fake blogs or pay bloggers on the side for positive reviews.  There’s always going to be an unease about this, especially for those of us that are in online marketing and have our own blogs.  We’re playing many roles here.  We’re marketers working on behalf of clients, we’re social media strategists trying to legitimize a practice, and we’re bloggers wishing to maintain our integrity.

The rest of this post is an up-to-date version of what I wrote two years ago.  Slightly changed for today:

To me, it’s important to remember, first and foremost, that we work for the client. Let’s face it. As marketers, our goal here is to create a program in which qualified influential bloggers will write (and hopefully write favorably) about our clients’ products. Or at least their e