Every now and then someone makes a mistake. With the rise of social media and social networking, mistakes can sometimes turn into crisis within one hour. A mistake made in front of hundreds of social media experts can create a crisis in a matter of minutes. You may know where I’m heading with this but sometimes in life we need to learn lessons from others’ mistakes.
As a small business person or entrepreneur interested in doing your own PR, this is one important lesson to learn.
Here was the scenario (and by the way I learned of this situation via Richard Laermer of Bad Pitch Blog - a very important read for newbies in PR and media outreach): Beth Brody from Brody PR sent out a pitch to members of the PR, advertising and social media community about a new e-book on social media for small business. Harmless, right? Well, unfortunately she blast emailed it to hundreds of reporters and bloggers (some of whom were not the appropriate target). Making matters worse she failed to blind copy her entire email list and instead “CC’d” the whole list. Let’s just say this is a no-no. If we simply stopped here it would be bad enough to describe as a crisis.
But, of course it just went south from there.
Many reporters and bloggers on the list who replied to Ms. Brody asking to unsubscribe failed to reply only to the sender. They instead hit “reply all.” As I’m sure you can imagine by now, this set off a fire storm and upset members of the media and blogging community even further, thus turning the episode into a full blown crisis. Although Ms. Brody said she was busy facilitating the unsubscribe requests, she failed to accept responsibility for her mistake and apologize in a timely manner, at this point adding salt to the wound.
The wrong move in social media can turn south in a hurry, to say the least. So here are the lessons we learned from this episode:
1) Try to avoid blast emailing a press release, pitch or any type of correspondence to members of the media without first customizing and tailoring your pitch to targeted journalists and bloggers.
2) Always keep in mind the differences between “blind copy” and “carbon copy” when sending an email to more than one person.
3) If something goes wrong don’t wait it out or deflect blame (not saying Ms. Brody did so in this case, but it is important to note). Immediately grab hold of the situation, take responsibility if necessary and even apologize if that’s the best course of action.
4) We love Richard Laermer. But with all due respect your goal is to not get on his radar for Bad Pitch Blog.
5) Download the PR Toolkit to learn great tips on how to effectively do public relations and media outreach.
Ms. Brody may in fact be a wonderful PR professional who used poor judgment in an isolated case. But it’s important to learn from certain mistakes so that small business professionals and entrepreneurs can avoid going down the same path.
Do you have a nightmare pitch story to tell? Please share your comments here.
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This is a PR nightmare! It’s amazing how far immediately taking responsibility for a mistake can turn a bad situation around. @dmscott had a blog post last week that called out a firm on some email opt-in tactics. This situation was immediately addressed by senior brass at the offending firm within the comments. Check out the exchange here… http://bit.ly/mzVPY
John:
Yes, this was a failure. But the mistake that was made was small. The way people responded compounded the fact. Why would you hit “Reply to All” to be unsusbscribed from a list when you KNOW that the only one who can unsubscribe you is the sender? I thought it was purposefully obnoxious by all the people who did it. I have a full account of it on my post here:
Social media “gurus” and bloggers are egotistical jerks
http://www.sparkminute.com/?p=915
I should note that there was another mistake that nobody talks about, and that is the fact that none of the links in her post actually linked to the book she was promoting in her press release.
Also, if you want a real PR fail story, read this one. It’s a two parter where the client comes in with a completely obtuse move at the end.
Hey PR, bloggers are not tools to be used
http://www.sparkminute.com/?p=497
UPDATE: Bad PR experience story. PR firm’s client is obtuse.
http://www.sparkminute.com/?p=514
David, thanks for your comments. To be fair, as a recipient you do have an obligation to avoid hitting the “reply to all” button. I hope you can see, though, that my blog is all about teaching the small business person the right (and wrong way) of communicating with the media. Every now and then it’s very important to learn from mistakes made so that we can all learn from it. Thanks for including the links to the additional posts and information!
Dear John,
I wanted to share my experiences and lessons learned with others so no one makes the same mistake I did. I started a blog (http://brodypr.blogspot.com/) which contains the valuable advice I received and I appreciate your feedback.
Thanks,
Beth
Hi Beth, thanks for your note. As I’ve been telling others and I’ll tell you here as well, please understand that my blog post was never to blast you. But I do think it’s very important to pass this experience on to my audience, the small business owner trying to do his/her own PR. Sometimes it’s important to learn from our mistakes, which I truly believe yours was. We’ve all mishandled situations. While I don’t agree with how some are treating your actions, I certainly am sure you have also learned from it.