Firebrand lives on, as unrelated PR pitches
—Posted by Brian Morrissey |
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but why are you positively reinforcing his actions with an inbound link with anchor text PR Guru - that's what he wants, particularly from a domain like Adweek - fueling the fire
Posted by: Lisa | May 15, 2008 1:41:15 PM
What not to do on Facebook is right, can you say SPAM? And this person is a "guru?" And I totally agree with Lisa, why the link to his site?
While we're on the topic of what not to do in social media, I have another great example:
http://blog.heavybagmedia.com/?p=55
Posted by: Jackie Peters | May 15, 2008 2:08:17 PM
Updated to reflect him as a doofus.
Posted by: Brian Morrissey | May 15, 2008 2:47:58 PM
Regardless of the anchor text, you should still put a rel=nofollow on that link, Brian =)
Posted by: Melanie Phung | May 15, 2008 3:30:19 PM
I heard about this too. Not only does it make him look bad and unprofessional, it could hurt his new client and his business. He's using a previous client's brand (a tarnished one at that) to promote a new client. Prospective clients may shudder at the possibility of being trashed like that. Or see their brand sullied via another company - a dead one at that - via promotional spam.
Lisa's right about the link to his site, but while Chris Abraham may want more traffic, tactics like this will catch up with him.
Take notes, folks, on how not to do social media.
Posted by: Robin | May 16, 2008 10:25:38 AM
Update: Chris has decided to Digg the post. He's so down with social media. For good or bad, he's now the No. 1 Google search result for "PR doofus." I guess that's something.
On the Q re linking, we do that because it's only fair to Chris. If his search equity improves, so be it.
Posted by: Brian Morrissey | May 16, 2008 11:01:36 AM
Hey kids, thanks for all the love. No, I don't want or need the traffic. cabraham.com isn't even much more than just an aggregation blog. So, I was just playing back. That's one thing that PR folks sorely lack: playfulness and and experimental soul. Hell, I have been online well before web 2.0 and will be well after. I have been playing with "proper" PR and marketing firms, and to be honest, they're so afraid of "getting onto the front page of the NY Times" that they're completely frozen and impotent.
So, we'll see how these tea leaves coalesce into my fortune. My colleagues fancy this entire thing funny, my business partner laughed his ass off and rolled his eyes, and my employees almost peed themselves.
Maybe I don't want to work for joyless clients who aren't willing to play -- because, at the end of the day, Social Media requires playfulness, investment, experimenting, and a bloody good sense of humor.
I guess being a geek-in-the wool -- a doofus , if you insist -- has done me very well. I have been online and invested in online conversation from the late 80s right through today, where have you been?
Posted by: Chris Abraham | May 16, 2008 11:57:22 AM
Chris, I'm only 31, so I haven't been at it for as long as you have, but I've been at it long enough, 12 years to be precise. Playfulness and experimenting are great, but when I do work for a client I do it from a position of knowledge and experience. I play on my own time. And let's face it, that stunt was blatant SPAM, nothing playful or experimental about it.
Posted by: Jackie Peters | May 16, 2008 1:23:52 PM
Thanks for clarifying, I was one of the 500+ members groupspammed by Chris and couldn't figure out how he hijacked FB groups to send that clearly-unrelated-to-Firebrand e-mail.
I was in PR for more than a decade and do social media for an ad agency now. Hell, we put an employee naked on our home page this month to poke fun at pop culture - I think we're pretty playful and experimental. That said, I think a FB admin hijacking a client's user group to promote something else is just...wrong.
Posted by: Annie Heckenberger | May 16, 2008 6:33:14 PM
So, on behalf of a client, he spammed members of a group that he started for another client. Two people on this forum received that spam and identify it as spam and say they couldn't figure out why they got it. A third had heard about it.
He's violated basic principles, gets called out on and then Diggs the story. He's proud of it and he's laughing at it. Unbelievable.
I wonder if his new client knows about this.
Posted by: Monique S. | May 17, 2008 12:15:44 AM
I don't even know what more to say except that it was a blogger outreach and a request for bloggers, which is a clean pitch and not a spam. There was no selling, no direct sales, and not even any marketing, just a request for bloggers to see if folks might interested in covering it. You guys really need to relax. Cries of Spam are not unlike cries of Witch in Salem.
Posted by: Chris Abraham | May 18, 2008 9:57:16 AM
Umm, they really are unlike that.
Posted by: Chris (not him) | May 19, 2008 7:39:51 PM
Mea Culpa.
We hit the lights and closed the doors, but obviously (we) forgot to lock them. (And) Because of our oversight, some of our most loyal supporters got spammed and for that, we are truly sorry.
Please be sure to pass on our apologies. (on to whomever may be missing this note). Rest assured, we'll never reach out to you unless it's absolutely relevant or entertaining.. That was our purpose when we launched across TV, web and mobile. And it's still our ambition today.
Sincerely,
Your Friends from Firebrand
Posted by: Shari F. Leventhal | May 20, 2008 1:48:35 PM
