An apology from Brody PR - Dear Nick, I created a list of social media experts who might be interested in reviewing a new guide to social media for small biz. I inadvertently put the list name in the cc: box, rather than the bcc: box. A few folks must have hit the "reply all" button, rather than clicking on the “unsubscribe link” at the bottom, which started a stream of spam. Please accept my personal apology, albeit a little late in the day, since I was trying to remove everyone who wanted to be unsubscribed from the list immediately.
Amy Stinson
· 4 months ago
which begs the question: What was in this guide?
chrisabraham
· 4 months ago
That's a terrible apology!
Loa Fridfinnson
· 4 months ago
Yikes! Now that's bad PR!
pjatloop
· 4 months ago
ouch - that's a bad error of judgement. Although I do get the feeling that 'hang the PR person' is becoming quite a popular sport. I confess - I'm in PR and there are some dreadful people in our industry and this does not help.
hepcatdata
· 4 months ago
this is a pretty basic mistake but it can happen to anyone - give them a break for goodness sake. There's much more serious things in the world to get so highhanded about.
jeffthomas_uk
· 4 months ago
A ludicrous, badly written, unbearably pompous blog post. Get a grip, O'Neill.
John Thomas
· 4 months ago
Just to be pedantic, the site uses a Flash animation, not animated GIFs. Fact checking, please :)
tomewing
· 4 months ago
I quite agree that Brody PR's ugly eye-distracting animated gifs at the top right of their site are a laughable piece of design.
Clearly what she should have done is get some even uglier eye-distracting animated gifs and put them under a big banner saying "My Sponsors".
Albygiddeon
· 4 months ago
Even though this may show how much hostility is out there about PR people, I would say that real journalists wouldn't give a sh*t if they were listed on the cc field instead of the bcc field - probably happens all the time. Smart journos don't hate smart PR people. It does show the self importance that "bloggers" attach to themselves (and how much time they have on their hands). I hardly doubt this was "the single email that killed a PR firm."
I bet you Beth Brody writes a book about the incident and all the blowhards out there will "join the conversation" and write about it.
Hey, maybe I'll start a blog about blogging - oh, too late.
Matt K
· 4 months ago
It's one thing to report on a mistake. It's another to do so with such apparent glee. Social Times, schadenfreude is thy name....
Modus
· 4 months ago
I got to the post via Twitter - reading it has wasted 3 minutes of my time I cannot recover. Sad how you take you time to slate other people for an error anyone can make.
PodcastSteve
· 4 months ago
I add my voice to those who are critical of the unbridled glee bloggers seem to be taking in catching someone making a mistake. I know Beth and I know how badly she feels about this error, but my goodness, it was a mistake.
None of you ever makes a mistake, right? No compassion at all in the blogosphere? Hope you all have thick skin when you make a mistake -- and you will make one some day -- because the long knives will come out pointing in your direction then.
Nowadays, it seems like it's more important to embarrass someone than to say something of substance. Instead of jumping all over the person who made the mistake, how about some practical blog entries about things to be careful of and traps you might fall in that will make bloggers want to dishonor you?
Nick O'Neill
· 4 months ago
Steve,
Here job is to reach out to us and so far all of her press releases haven't come off to well. I tend to be a polite individual and rarely discuss when someone slips up but this turned into a disaster and all she need to do was to delete the list from running at all and start a new one.
It took 8 hours to figure it out. She still hasn't sent a follow-up email to anybody to explain what happened and engage them directly. She also apologizes in the comments here yet doesn't understand what technically went wrong when sending emails is practically her job.
I honestly don't want to be rude but she just made one mistake after another and IT'S HER JOB to know these things. I've seen mistakes like this made before but typically it was squashed in no time at all.
Best, Nick
chadjohnson
· 4 months ago
Oh, Nick. It's called PR not ER...you pointless firestarter! I don't even know you or your site...and I shouldn't even be replying to you. BTW--your message above is riddled with grammatical errors. Ever heard of a comma?
jackslater88
· 4 months ago
Seriously, writers like you need to get over yourself.
Stop being s judgmental and over reactive. Everyone makes mistakes, and in this economy the last thing we should be doing is eating whole companies alive because of a clerical error.
Michael E. Rubin
· 4 months ago
I'm sensing major league backlash in the next few months. First it was mommybloggers and the sick catfight over swag displayed at BlogHer. Soon it will be "influential" bloggers and the snarky "holier than thou" attitude many (not all) display.
Disclaimer: I am an Empower MediaMarketing employee and this is my own opinion.
Hugh Butler
· 4 months ago
This is news? This is just gossip of the worst kind propagated to a large audience...
Don't you have any real work to do?
PodcastSteve
· 4 months ago
I guess the bottom line for me is that way too many people went way too ballistic, rude, and uncharitable in their anger over what was clearly a mistake compounded by people almost gleefully responding to keep the mailstorm going. The people who were most enraged seemed to be most clueless about how to help stop the problem (stop replying) and no one seems to want to give a colleague half a break today.
This whole thing reminds me of the bullies in middle school. I just hope the people who piled on Beth beyond all reason and rational behavior for an honest mistake that ANY OF US COULD MAKE and for not answering them when they were pounding on the table, well, I hope those folks never make a mistake in their professional lives. Because it's obvious that social media participants are more antisocial than social when it comes to sensing some blood in the water.
That's a real shame, in my opinion. We ought to be better than that!
gaming
· 4 months ago
phew! it would be difficult to explain that one! #FAIL
Stevie
· 4 months ago
posting here as I read this -- alternately understanding why some are really on fire about this -- and also to clarify some things. 1) Brody PR made a huge mistake in the CC column. I will say this that other much larger PR firms have done the same- outing a *huge* number of editors @ various publications both print and online and giving everyone access to stylists, top editors and online writer email addresses. I think it's not a good idea to do that but if it happens, you email everyone in the group again and apologize and see if you can recall the email that was originally sent out.
2) damage control is not Brody's strong suit- that's clear. When a mea culpa is needed, say it fast and say it with sincerity and make sure you learn from the process.
3) Nick -- have charity and sympathy for those not quite as savvy as you are. You could make that clear by a suggestion that she contact someone highly skilled in social media on how to help her clear up her gaffe asap. Sometimes people make mistakes and just would rather hide under the table. However fessing up often helps. Not that I disagree with entirely with what you have done-- I could have outed major PR firms in the last year for things they have done -- but didn't because I chose to not alienate people.
4) while we all have learned something here--which particularly Ms Brody should have-- and everyone here should note that compassion and understanding and perhaps a private note to someone first to let them know it's coming online as a post is a good heads up so they can start spinning the damage control asap.
I might be hanging myself here with people who have no clue who I am (well I know more of those posting than you would know me for certain) but as a person who really works hard on social media, editorial pieces and have helped/advised a number of pr people over a very long term, it's sometimes a good thing to help others even when they didn't ask for your help or offended you.
Your comments are on point. I think you've actually helped her PR firm, by linking back to her site, which has low trust with Google. Perhaps she is so clever that she intentionally wanted to draw attention, such that a bunch of bloggers would link to her-- thus, making her site (PR2 and almost no traffic according to 3rd party measurement sites), a mini-sensation.
She should thank you for this free PR!
wallstreeterww
· 4 months ago
That has got to be one of the most monumental goofups in the history of online marketing. Im glad thats not on my conscience. high risk auto insurance
cathybrooks
· 4 months ago
As someone who was on that distribution list I wanted to chime in. While I agree that Brody PR's snafu was of the most sophomoric in nature, compounded by a deep irony that the book she was shilling is about leveraging new social media tools yet is done with such colossal failure using a very established technology, I do think that the personal attacks are unwarranted.
What I will say is that after getting the flood of emails I did a reply only to sender and asked to be removed from the. To her credit, I received no further emails on the thread after that (the thread did continue for another couple of hours as I know from seeing the notes excerpted elsewhere.
The part that bothers me is the way in which her utter failure at one of the most basic, fundamental skills of PR now casts a pall on the rest of the communications professionals out there who *are* doing great work.
We cannot blame an industry for the ineptitude of one.
And for the record, Nick. While I do appreciate your perspective, you may also want to check your own grammar and such ... hard to throw stones when you're living in glass house yourself.
All Comments
Dear Nick,
I created a list of social media experts who might be interested in reviewing a new guide to social media for small biz. I inadvertently put the list name in the cc: box, rather than the bcc: box. A few folks must have hit the "reply all" button, rather than clicking on the “unsubscribe link” at the bottom, which started a stream of spam. Please accept my personal apology, albeit a little late in the day, since I was trying to remove everyone who wanted to be unsubscribed from the list immediately.
Clearly what she should have done is get some even uglier eye-distracting animated gifs and put them under a big banner saying "My Sponsors".
I bet you Beth Brody writes a book about the incident and all the blowhards out there will "join the conversation" and write about it.
Hey, maybe I'll start a blog about blogging - oh, too late.
Sad how you take you time to slate other people for an error anyone can make.
None of you ever makes a mistake, right? No compassion at all in the blogosphere? Hope you all have thick skin when you make a mistake -- and you will make one some day -- because the long knives will come out pointing in your direction then.
Nowadays, it seems like it's more important to embarrass someone than to say something of substance. Instead of jumping all over the person who made the mistake, how about some practical blog entries about things to be careful of and traps you might fall in that will make bloggers want to dishonor you?
Here job is to reach out to us and so far all of her press releases haven't come off to well. I tend to be a polite individual and rarely discuss when someone slips up but this turned into a disaster and all she need to do was to delete the list from running at all and start a new one.
It took 8 hours to figure it out. She still hasn't sent a follow-up email to anybody to explain what happened and engage them directly. She also apologizes in the comments here yet doesn't understand what technically went wrong when sending emails is practically her job.
I honestly don't want to be rude but she just made one mistake after another and IT'S HER JOB to know these things. I've seen mistakes like this made before but typically it was squashed in no time at all.
Best,
Nick
Stop being s judgmental and over reactive. Everyone makes mistakes, and in this economy the last thing we should be doing is eating whole companies alive because of a clerical error.
Disclaimer: I am an Empower MediaMarketing employee and this is my own opinion.
Don't you have any real work to do?
This whole thing reminds me of the bullies in middle school. I just hope the people who piled on Beth beyond all reason and rational behavior for an honest mistake that ANY OF US COULD MAKE and for not answering them when they were pounding on the table, well, I hope those folks never make a mistake in their professional lives. Because it's obvious that social media participants are more antisocial than social when it comes to sensing some blood in the water.
That's a real shame, in my opinion. We ought to be better than that!
1) Brody PR made a huge mistake in the CC column. I will say this that other much larger PR firms have done the same- outing a *huge* number of editors @ various publications both print and online and giving everyone access to stylists, top editors and online writer email addresses. I think it's not a good idea to do that but if it happens, you email everyone in the group again and apologize and see if you can recall the email that was originally sent out.
2) damage control is not Brody's strong suit- that's clear. When a mea culpa is needed, say it fast and say it with sincerity and make sure you learn from the process.
3) Nick -- have charity and sympathy for those not quite as savvy as you are. You could make that clear by a suggestion that she contact someone highly skilled in social media on how to help her clear up her gaffe asap.
Sometimes people make mistakes and just would rather hide under the table. However fessing up often helps.
Not that I disagree with entirely with what you have done-- I could have outed major PR firms in the last year for things they have done -- but didn't because I chose to not alienate people.
4) while we all have learned something here--which particularly Ms Brody should have-- and everyone here should note that compassion and understanding and perhaps a private note to someone first to let them know it's coming online as a post is a good heads up so they can start spinning the damage control asap.
I might be hanging myself here with people who have no clue who I am (well I know more of those posting than you would know me for certain) but as a person who really works hard on social media, editorial pieces and have helped/advised a number of pr people over a very long term, it's sometimes a good thing to help others even when they didn't ask for your help or offended you.
google PR went down too *chuckles*
http://mp3grape.com
Your comments are on point. I think you've actually helped her PR firm, by linking back to her site, which has low trust with Google. Perhaps she is so clever that she intentionally wanted to draw attention, such that a bunch of bloggers would link to her-- thus, making her site (PR2 and almost no traffic according to 3rd party measurement sites), a mini-sensation.
She should thank you for this free PR!
What I will say is that after getting the flood of emails I did a reply only to sender and asked to be removed from the. To her credit, I received no further emails on the thread after that (the thread did continue for another couple of hours as I know from seeing the notes excerpted elsewhere.
The part that bothers me is the way in which her utter failure at one of the most basic, fundamental skills of PR now casts a pall on the rest of the communications professionals out there who *are* doing great work.
We cannot blame an industry for the ineptitude of one.
And for the record, Nick. While I do appreciate your perspective, you may also want to check your own grammar and such ... hard to throw stones when you're living in glass house yourself.