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I think the biggest mistake was "I know you."

A minor error in the grand scheme of things. I think we are all guilty of this one, present company included. When I or someone in my firm does this, it tells me we are moving too quickly and trying to hit a quota or number instead of taking the time to customize pitches to bloggers.

If anyone out there claims to have *not* made a mistake like this, he or she is full of shit. Or was just hired yesterday and is still in orientation. :)

I made a nice little blunder myself this week (not of this variety but certainly stupider), but if you can't slug through the tough times, well...

Give Margaret a high five or a hug or a pat on the back or a [whatever's considered appropriate] for me. Keep on rockin' in the free world.

Todd, you stuck to your word and this is a great post for people to read. We all make mistakes in our career, it's too bad how some people use it as a platform to be cruel and not for constructive critiques.

Tell Margaret to put it behind her, she has plenty of things to look forward to in her career. I would need a whole separate blog to talk about the mistakes I made during my PR career :)

Keep on doing what you are all doing!

/kff

[i]Isn’t that how the mean popular kids in every-teen-movie-ever-made tend to act? [/i]

Like I've always said: Ninety percent of the world never leaves high school - they just leave adult supervision.

As others have said, *everyone* has made a mistake like this in their career. I'm sure that if we were forced to re-read the pr pitches or ad copy that we wrote early in our careers, we'd hang our heads in shame.

And as a bad pitch, this nowhere near as bad as some of the examples sitting in my own in-box from a variety of companies.

The mistake, as you rightly called it, was the vagueness. We don't know if what she was pitching is appropriate for Marshall, and neither does he, because there's not enough information.

Not good PR practice, sure but nothing to fall on your sword over :-)

See, what I love about this post is, now you've mea culpaed -- on something very minor. That way, when you really mess up you can keep mum, because no one can say you never acknowledge and share lessoned learned. Ahh, PR.

First off, it was great to see that the first comments were kind & considerate. I care about this more for Margaret's sake!

It's true that the error-of-vagueness (and FB "friendliness") was pretty innocuous in the grand scheme. Still, it's something we'll discuss & work on here.

As for "Ms. Sticks" (I presume that's code for "mistakes"?):

I respect your sarcasm but if you are a long-term reader of my blog I'd hope you've seen enough transparency to think twice about suggesting I'd cover something up in the future.

To be helpful, feel free to poke even more fun of me after reading these posts about past screw-ups (but just be sure to give me credit for the transparency!) ...

http://www.pr-squared.com/2007/09/blogger_relations_good_intenti.html
http://www.pr-squared.com/2007/07/not_sure_whether_to_laugh_or_c.html
http://www.pr-squared.com/2006/11/errors_in_the_echo_chamber.html

Good post and way to own up.

I've been working in PR for close to a decade now and all I can say is thank heavens blogger relations wasn't a part of PR bootcamp when I was just starting out.

The fact is, we have ALL made mistakes. Some minor and some much worse than this. I can only imagine the reaction some of my first pitches elicited from journalists. Luckily for me, the worst thing I endured was an irate reporter yelling at me over the phone about how inconsiderate I was for wasting his time and to call him back when I actually knew what I was talking about. It made for some good laughter with my teammates later (much later-it took weeks for me to fess up to what happened), but I was still horrified!

Unfortunately for this next generation of PR newbies, they don't get off easy with an earful of crankiness. Nope. In the new social media-facebook- twitter-blogosphere age, they get their mistakes broadcast to millions of people over the Internet, their name AND face included in the public flogging. Yikes!

When it comes to mistakes, we've all been there regardless of the industry we work in. The key is to avoid nursing a bruised ego for too long. Most of us will work for 40+ years. There are still many missteps, blunders and bloopers for us to make and learn from!

Maybe I'm just too old school, but it really upsets me that bloggers (and some reporters) do this. Feedback is great, but it could be done privately. It's an abuse of power to call people out by name (and in Margaret's case, face). Would those examples be just as compelling without the specific details? Yes. He could even have left it with the agency and client (not the person's name). Once you name people (first and last), the intent is public humiliation not a learning experience. Just my opinion.

Todd,
I had an internal joke with my team that they weren't truly initiated into the group until they had their first public "outing" or gaffe. It happens, and provided it's not unethical (bad pitch vs. paying bloggers w/o transparency), what's important is learning from it.

Dave

I hate to admit I follow your blog but I read Marshall’s article last night, which led me here today.

Your transparency is great – everyone from reporters to PR reps to analysts – are learning new lessons every day about social media and your shared insights are very interesting. I find it admirable to put yourself out there – I have yet to see Outcast, Weber, Bite or the others comment, let alone blog about their own lessons learned – so kudos to you both, Todd and Margaret.

Unfortunately, blogger relations is even more time consuming to "get stuff right" and "personalize." Most clients don't pay more for social media relations and management - they just lump it all into media relations - so as an industry we are forced to work fast and furious. Everyone in social media is working this way but PR agencies have the added burden of executing in that manner for multiple companies at one time. This can lead to mistakes like Margaret's.

Of course this wasn’t only about social media – it was about better PR ... I’m sure the workload, combined with her level of experience, were probably key factors in this - but it could happen to any of us.

Hang in there, Margaret. Maybe this will just make you famous!

I really don't think Marshall's response was all that mean, nor do I think he intended to be mean. I know Marshall pretty well and there isn't a mean bone in his body. Look at the emoticon. He is trying to be constructive and a bit cheeky.

Thanks again, all.

Christine - it's ok to own up to being a reader; you're in my feedreader too. ;)

Cathy - I think the lesson here is that the old rules don't apply - including the old "courtesies." Pitch a blogger, be prepared for the consequences - including the one we've experienced today.

Nat - I don't know about Marshall's intentions. I think he could have made his points without using specific people's names (and photos). It's a big, weird, wired world and that stuff will be on Google 4ever. Not sure that that sort of punishment fit the "crime." His OTHER points, his lessons, were well received though.

Hi all, interesting discussion here. I do apologize for any excessive meanness - let's be honest, it's too easy to be mean when you're frustrated with people who are just names and avatars to you. That said, I did try to offer some positive input in the post, etc etc. Margaret has left a very thoughtful comment in response to my post. I hope I can be a helpful participant in these discussions. I will try not to be that nasty more than once a year, so cross your fingers, we'll all be spared for another 12 months. Thanks, by the way, to all the PR people who added me as a friend in twitter after this (including Todd) I hope we'll be able to get to know each other better there. If you're not familiar with the value of Twitter, see my recent post on marshallk.com titled "twitter is paying my rent."

best to all,
Marshall

Marshall, you made some great suggestions in the post. I am sure you *were* frustrated.

(But if you think it can be bad now, check out my more recent post on MyPRGenie. Services like THAT are gonna really suck for writers like you.)

BTW - thanks VERY much for stopping by to weigh in. (Margaret is fine, btw.)

I'm sure we can all be friends. ...Maybe even "actual" friends, not "just" FB friends. ;)

Todd,

I agree with some of the other posters here. This is relatively minor. It's a mistake, it's unfortunate and something you don't like, but it was a generic pitch from someone relatively junior. It wasn't deception, bribery, impersonation., etc.,

While there are issues with that, compared to the other gaffes, it isn't in the same ballpark (kinda like the Rockies last night).

Hi Todd:
Don't worry -- Racepoint will have your back on this one...

I actually don't think you have much to apologize for here. Not every "pitch" is going to a gold nugget.

We're still feeling our way through digital media relations and I discuss some initial thoughts on PR/media relations on our blog here:

http://racetalk.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/press-20/

I think journalists and bloggers need to take some responsibility and start to use some proper decorum. Is it right to publish an email pitch? Isn't that a form of private communication? I'm not sure of what the right answer is -- but it is a question worth considering.

So I'm still not sure what the purpose of Marshall's post is. What value is he supplying to his readers? What's the news here -- that PR people sometimes send out bad pitches? I think we already all knew that.

Tell Margaret not to worry -- the pain does go away after a few days. She should just be thankful that she's not the Colorado Rockies...

Hi all, interesting discussion here.

Hey,

I'm a little late on this but this discussion has been extremely valuable to me as a PR newbie myself! Todd, your blog is great.. My boss recommended it to me since I just started and its already giving me a great idea of what not to do when I write my first pitches! My heart goes out to Margaret too... although as someone mentioned I hope she does get some sort of fame from this. :) Thanks again and hopefully you won't be seeing me on bad pitch blogs in the future!

"(Your blog is) already giving me a great idea of what not to do when I write my first pitches" - umm, thanks, Mallory ... I think?!

I can see the new tagline now: "Read PR-Squared if you want to know what NOT to do." ;)

What a vague message on the part of Margaret. I don't think Marshall's return post was all that bad. A little impolite posting the exchange, but something you have to watch out for when pitching bloggers.

The question arises, is Margaret continuing to make similar posts, which just are not posted by bloggers?

May I also ask, what steps should a company or PR agency take when managing newbies to the world of online public relations?

I also find it amazingly ironic that a lot of people point to the use of social media by youngsters as evidence of the huge changes in today’s media landscape and also make pompous statements about how older people are not as new media savvy as younger people because they aren’t young and have not grown up using online social networks. Yet when push, comes to shove, if a youngster makes a gaffe in social media we give them the benefit of the doubt. Quite frankly I think it’s rather odd. Margaret’s example does not really justify for me, but the example of the Intern sending an anonymous post to Jeff Jarvis after he ribbed Dell over its first version of the Dell blog does. There’s a lot to be said for the wisdom that comes with experience.

John, no need to belabor Margaret's vague post. Rest assured that she got the message loud & clear, and that yes, she shoulda known better. All of our folks undergo a lot of training but the occasional lame/vague pitch is going to slip thru the cracks.

You make an interesting point about the youth issue. Maybe to the younger crowd, a vague pitch would be enough (i.e., among true "friends")?!

Flare ups like these will lead to that much needed experience, eh? How else do we GET experience, except thru the occasional failure?

I'm sure that Marshall has NEVER written anything short of pulitzer-worthy ;)

Cheekiness aside, being called out on a bad pitch and fixing your problem is better than continuing to give bad pitches and wondering why you can't get anyone interested in your ideas.