The the latest episode of The New Mediology, Nathan and I discussed a PR blunder that relates to bloggers, marketing people, PR pros, and anyone interested in social media marketing in general. You can listen to the podcast (online or via iTunes) to get the full story.

The quick version is that several weeks ago the firm Brody PR pitched a large list of bloggers, podcasters, and social media/technology media outlets. The pitch itself was bad and missed the mark, but the way it was done and with a technical issue that went along with it, the whole situation made Brody PR a case study traditional PR people doing a poor job of understanding how to pitch in social media. The whole situation provided an opportunity for numerous bloggers to comment on the situation.

The bottom line is that anyone trying to reach out to people for business purposes using social media MUST understand what they’re doing or it has a high probability of blowing up in their face. Just ask Brody PR. A mere Google search of “Brody PR” brings up numerous negative posts about this situation. That’s hardly good for business but it’s the reality of business today. In the words of my childhood heroes G.I. Joe: “Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.”

Perspective is an interesting thing. Perspective lets us make sense of things we don’t otherwise know how to process. Perspective shades our views on things so the hues are more pleasing to our tastes. But when people with competing perspectives converge upon the same thing…then…BOOM! You have quite a situation. Perspective is an interesting thing.

Depending upon your perspective, you’ll either love or hate the five statements below. Depending upon the perspective of others in your organization, they’ll either love or hate these five statements. If their perspective doesn’t line up with your perspective, you have quite a situation. Take some time to see what the perspective is of those around you…particularly those you hope to influence.

1. With social media you can see what anyone may be saying about your brand, company, service, products, employees, or you personally.

2. With social media, anyone can be a publisher, director, producer, broadcaster, or marketer.

3. With social media, money isn’t the most important currency. Time is.

4. With social media, branding, reputation management, public relations, and engaging customers are forever changed.

5. Social media changes the way marketing has been done for a very long time.

This Saturday I’m speaking at Barcamp Nashville with my friend Steve Horton from the firm Katcher, Vaughn, and Bailey here in town. Our session is called PR 2.0: The Deer Have Guns Now. A very recent example of the deer (the public, bloggers, and social media in general) having “guns” to fight back now involves a recent case with 3M the manufacturer of Post-It Notes.

The Background
You can read the full story here but basically what happened is that about two years ago some people decided to play a joke on a coworker and put Post-It Notes all over his beloved Jaguar. One of the people uploaded the pictures to his Flickr page and before he knew it thousands of people were interested in this creative practical joke. It got picked up by major blogs like Boing Boing and Digg. ABC News even did a story about it.

The Problem
Several months ago 3M contacted the photographer to ask see if they could use the photos for an back-to-school promotion they were working on for the Fall. The photographer asked a professional photographer friend what a fair licensing fee would be for 3M and when he responded with it a 3M employee said they wouldn’t be willing to pay more than what it would cost them to do the photo shoot themselves which was going to be between $750-$1000. The photographer countered with a $2000 license fee and never heard from 3M again.

Then a few months ago people started telling the photographer that they saw his picture at their local Office Depots, Staples, and Office Max stores. It turns out 3M decided to recreate the car and pass it off like the originals. They even have video on their YouTube channel showing them doing it (and note at the beginning of the video they say it’s a video of “the Post-It car” not even “a Post-It car.”)

To date, this story has been blogged about over 100 times including being covered by well known blogger/author David Meerman Scott. There are hundreds of angry comments for 3M on the blogs and on Digg.com as well.

The Bottom Line
The viral marketing idea 3M was hoping to capitalize on here is blowing up in their face. When you choose to go hunting for new business, new ideas, and new customers in the current online environment don’t forget that you can get shot now as well. The traditional mindset for marketers is only that they are the hunters. Being the hunted is an unfamiliar position for them but one they will continue to find themselves in until they better understand the world they now live in.

3M’s Opportunity
Ok, so all of that is the bad news for 3M. Frankly, they look like the big bad company that’s too cheap to pay a little guy $2,000 for the use of the pictures. The good news for 3M is that they can still come out of this looking all right if they’re willing to do a few things.

• First, 3M should apologize. Tell the photographer they’re sorry and admit that they were in the wrong there. Even if they weren’t legally in the wrong they seem to have ripped off a bit of intellectual property just because they could. There is power in being genuinely sorry.
• Then, 3M should pay the photographer and use the pictures. Whatever the photographer’s initial asking price was is what they should pay. Once they do that they should replace the YouTube video with the original pictures and any upcoming printed items that haven’t been sent to press yet.
• Finally, 3M should start contacting the bloggers who covered this. This will take some time and effort to do but it will be worth it. Many of the bloggers will likely post about 3M’s willingness to take the time to make things right. In the end 3M could really look like a company that learned from it’s errors and change the entire conversation. Until then they’ll just be the company that told him to take his Post-It Notes and stick it!