Pile On

It started off inocently enough.  But Beth Brody from BrodyPR made a simple mistake.  She e-mailed the same pitch to a big list of contacts and included that contact list in the CC field which ignited a series of “Reply All” responses that, in tun, went to the same distribution list.

Over and over again.

It’s sort of like the media relations equivalent of being at a rock concert and the audience gets more caught up in keeping that damn beachball bouncing around in the crowd than they do in what’s going on onstage.  Then, the next thing you know, the grumpy musical purists start yelling for people to sit down and the kids start complaining that nobody ever lets them have any fun anymore …

Lucky for me (I guess) that I was at a client meeting while all this was going on and I just walked in on the carnage afterward.  Today there’s been a virtual pile-up on the social news media highway – and I’m viewing it as a first responder.

Maybe “pile up” isn’t nearly as accurate as “pile on” when you see how other PR professionals took advantage of Beth Brody’s lapse in judgement to cast dispersions, fluff up their own reputation and build blog traffic.

Here’s what looks to have happened:

  • Beth Brody sent out her pitch in the morning (7:45 am CDT).
  • Approximately 17 minutes later, Donna Maria Coles Johnson of Monroe, NC “Replied All” in response and the die was cast.  Everyone on the first distribution of the release received Donna Maries response.
  • A half hour later, Shel Isreal replied back to Donna Maria – again using the “Reply All” function.
  • Within minutes, folks were starting to “Reply All” to let everyone know not to use “Reply All” to reply.
  • People started getting a little snarky shortly after that and the sniping started.
  • Ken Wheaton, of AdAge, weighed in at 11:19 am CDT and threatened to expose those perpetuating the email chain reaction.  Although Ken didn’t follow through with his threat (entirely), he did write about it on the AdAge web site.
  • Not to be outdone by AdAge, John Capone of MediaPost offerred up a stoning at an OMMA conference to offending PR’s.
  • By a little before lunch, things went from snarky to mean-spirited with people insisting they be taken “off this fucking list” and moving to have BrodyPR put on a blacklist of PR firms who spam.

By the time the email “spamalanche” was over, things were just starting to heat up on Twitter.

  • In three hours, there were nearly 100 tweets about BrodyPR and the entire kerfuffle.
  • A few PR’s dominated the online tar-and-feathering; most notably serial-tweeter Chris Abraham (@chrisabraham) with nearly 20 tweets on the subject.
  • Others were tweeting and blogging about the event and there were those (including yours truly) who were blogging about the blogs and the tweets about the event.

So, what does all this tell us? 

First off, some people must have too much time on their hands. Honestly, the entire number of additional emails in my Inbox due to Beth Brody’s foul up and everyone else’s over-reaction to it totalled about 30 emails.  If I had been really put out by the entire matter, I could have set up a rule in outlook to delete anything with the subject header and I never would have seen any more emails past the first four or five.  (Read your Outlook owner’s manual, people!)

The second lesson is that the irony of fouling up an email pitch for a book on using social media for small business is more likely to hurt Beth and her client than all the pundit arm waving and chest beating.  Shel Isreal responding with a “Reply All” email to Donna Maria’s request is either blatant astroturfing or a huge blow to Shel’s credibility as an expert.  Neither is a good thing to have happen to your PR client.

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