Hello ladies! Feel free to edit this however you want.

A fake blog, flog or splog, is a form of bad marketing or public relations that involves a blog being written by a paid, usually biased individual of the company or product being blogged about. Flogs have been used to help promote clients or products, such as hotels, restaurants and soft drinks, and have become an increasingly bigger concern as blogs gain popularity as social media tools.

Today's blog entries demand honesty and transparency. David Berger, an IBM executive, said in an article, "If you overtly try to use blogs to advance some sort of corporate end, you've already lost the battle. There's a smart was to capitalize on the medium. It's in the authenticity of the bloggers themselves."

Unwritten rules by the growing community of the blogosphere heavily reject the creation and use of flogs. PR firms such as The Edleman Group have tarnished their client's brand as a result of creating fogs.

Flogs should not be practiced or used by Public Relations professionals because the Public Relations Code of Ethics requires professionals to adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and truth while acting as responsible advocates for clients by serving the publics best interest.

Blogs can be an effective too when used correctly, but when used to mislead the public by cloaking who is behind the writing, as in flogs, it harms the Public Relations Industry as a whole.