As if Toyota hasn’t already had enough bad press in the past year or so, there’s a storm brewing focused on a scheme that pretty much amounts to buying reviews from mommy bloggers. Crazy? You betcha.

Clarification – there appears to be a campaign afoot soliciting mom bloggers to write positive blog posts and reviews, share them widely in the social media space, and “thumbs up” a series of Toyota YouTube videos. And the reward dangled in front of these bloggers for their help (and putting their reputations on the line) – a $10 Amazon gift card.

This story comes to light courtesy of a well-regarded mom blogger, Crissy, at DearCrissy.com. More about Crissy in a minute.

The skinny: apparently there’s an organization called MommyNetworks, based in Tampa, Florida about which not a lot of information is available. Never a good sign. But I’m tenacious. Let the digging begin.

I like to start at the beginning. And your website really does speak volumes about you and your business — I always start there. A quick visit to the MommyNetworks website reveals no “About Us” page, no names, no faces, no connections to ‘real’ people. There’s really no brand story or explanation about what they do, who their clients are, what services they offer, who runs the company – and all those other little niggling details that go to credibility. I do so love a mystery.

Oh, because I couldn’t resist – and just for a giggle, here’s what “Get the Best Deals” section of the Mommy Networks website looks like. Muy impressivo!

Here’s what else I know. The domain MommyNetworks.org is 4 months old, their Whois.com information is protected and the website is, unquestionably, a horrible, embarrassing mess. There are a sum total of three blog posts on the site, the most recent published on December 21, 2010. Impressive! Especially to another blogger – or a brand considering hiring them to do any kind of marketing or PR work. But most importantly, who they are and what they do is really a complete and total mystery.

Can you say “WARNING, WARNING Will Robinson?”

Digging more. (I really should’ve been a PI). Hmmm. Website copyrighted by Care.com, a company that describes themselves this way:

Care.com provides a trusted place for families and care providers to easily connect, share caregiving experiences, and get advice. The company addresses the unique lifecycle of care needs that each family may go through — including child care, special needs care, tutoring, senior care, pet care, housekeeping and more. The service enables families to find and select the best care possible based on detailed profiles, background checks, and references for hundreds of thousands of mom-reviewed providers who are seeking to share their services.

How does all this fit in with MommyNetworks? Still a mystery.

Okay, enough digging. Back to Toyota.

Crissy received an email from Tiffany Lewis, at MommyNetworks, which I imagine is a blogging network that she belongs to – giving  her an opportunity to “work” and get a gift card in return. The email, from Tiffany Lewis, read like this:

Hello!

A new opportunity! Another chance to score a $10.00 Amazon gift card for the mommy bloggers who help out.

There was a big report released about Toyota, by the NHTSA and NASA, stating that there was no electronic flaw found, which was originally assumed to be the cause of all the recalls with the Priuses last year. It actually turned out to be pretty much “user error” that was causing the accelerator to stick.

It’s a big deal for Toyota since this has affected their reputation heavily and they had a lot of negative stigma around their brand as of late, and we’re helping to spread the positive news:

I need you to:
Write a post about the report & good news
In the post, link to a few of the articles or videos below
If possible, share on social networks or “thumbs up” the YouTube videos.

Tiffany Lewis
MommyNetworks.org

There’s a final note that asks:

Please meticulously track your efforts (If you tweet it out, the exact URL) You must do this to receive (sic) the giftcard!!! If you have any questions I will get back to you as soon as possible. Have a great day:)

Here’s the things about mom bloggers. Most of them (and I know many) are amazing people. And as much as some of them might like a good deal, a freebie or a fantastic opportunity, they are typically pretty smart cookies. They’re not going to do stupid things, just because someone asks them to. And they’re certainly not going to potentially damage the credibility they’ve managed to build as a result of their blogs, their Twitter or Facebook followings and with their clients, who are often PR firms and ad agencies, by jumping on board a sketchy opportunity like this.

Crissy did what any self-respecting blogger would – she got mad. Then she wrote a blog post about it. It’s a stellar post. Based on the 130+ comments that she’s received since the post was published this morning, there are no shortage of folks agreeing with Crissy’s shock and outrage.

But who’s to blame? Toyota? In fact, did Toyota have any idea this campaign was going on? If so, did they understand how it was being conducted and what was being asked by the blogger outreach team?

As the erudite Alli Worthington, a well-recognized name in social media and the lifestyle blogger community, and co-founder of Blissfully Domestic women’s magazine, one of the most trusted women’s destinations online, says when responding to Crissy’s post, chances are good the answer to those questions is a resounding ‘no.’

In fact, Alli’s response to the post is so good, I’ll share it for you here:

A friend sent me to read your story. Wow. Unfortunately nightmare stories of bad campaigns are not surprising anymore.

I wonder if Toyota even was aware this was taking place. Here’s my guess – Toyota has PR Firm XXX that is hired to help their image. PR Firm XXX hires multiple small boutique marketing companies to do a word of mouth marketing campaign geared at increasing positive regard for Toyota.

The above marketing group took the path of least resistance to achieve their goal of increasing positive regard for their client. I am not an attorney, but paying a (presumptively) bloggers to give positive news stories a thumbs up may be against the FTC guidelines.

The responsibility and bad PR falls ultimately in the lap of Toyota. However, my guess is this marketing group was some tertiary hire by the main PR company. Much of this comes down to a lack of oversight. I advise my clients to know exactly who their firm may be hiring out to do these word of mouth campaigns.

Such an embarrassment to everyone that should have been avoided with due diligence.

@AlliWorthington

My take – this isn’t something dreamed up by Toyota. It was an idea hatched by someone so eager to make a good impression with a client that they didn’t think it all the way through. They didn’t think about little things like ethics and the fact that you really can’t – and certainly shouldn’t – try to buy good reviews. And someone so absolutely ignorant about the mom blogger community as a whole that they tricked themselves into believing that moms – or bloggers anywhere – would be supportive of something so obviously wrong.

Due diligence. Understanding marketing and PR and ethical practices. Understanding the importance of full disclosure (not only a good idea, but required by the FTC) and, most importantly, realizing that whether you’re a brand, a PR firm, a marketing firm, consultant or blogger there can be major ramifications and potentially massive reputational damage done as the result of poorly conceived campaigns like this one.

And thanks to Crissy and the ethical thinking that led to her indignation and subsequent blogging about this issue, and to legions of other smart mommy bloggers, brands and agencies can learn some valuable lessons.

Know who you’re working with. Check them, and all of their resources out, very carefully. Ask for references and check them. Insist on being a part of all campaigns and approving content before it’s disseminated. Don’t be so anxious for results that you don’t first stop to determine how you define ‘good results’ – at least for purposes of your campaign and your goals. And also have a good handle on what you’re asking people to do.

And, for heaven’s sake, don’t think you can be unethical and pull the wool over the eyes of anyone – especially mom bloggers. They’re moms – they’ve probably already seen every trick in the book.

And mom bloggers, there’s a lesson here for you, too. Value yourself, above all else. Before associating yourself and your personal brand and credibility with an organization like MommyNetworks, do your own homework. Surely if you took the time to visit their website, you’d have some warning bells that things weren’t right. And if someone asks you do to something like MommyNetworks asked of Crissy and others, don’t hesitate to stand up and cry ‘foul’ … because that’s really the only right thing to do.

What did I miss?

Update:  Crissy just updated her original post with the following information from Samantha Snyer, owner of Mommy Networks.

UPDATE:

Samantha Snyder, owner of Mommy Networks, emailed me saying that she is in no way affiliated with Toyota. I don’t know how someone wakes up one day and decides to pay a bunch of mom bloggers to post good news about a brand out of their own pocket, but, that’s what Snyder says she was doing:

I am a toyota (sic) owner, that saw this come out last week and I thought that it would be a good case study. Honestly, look at my FB page. I really thought that I could bring up something as large as this recall and create a portfolio for MommyNetworks.org.

There was absolutely no mention of any of this in her original pitch, and I can only assume that the other bloggers involved were under the impression that there was some affiliation with Toyota, too. Might want to run this stuff by the brand, especially when you’re paying people.

And my final thoughts, as a marketer regularly helping brands protect and maintain their brand reputations, this is a perfect argument for the use of social media monitoring and business intelligence gathering tools as a critical component of business operations. People will do amazing things. And if you’re not listening, you might not have any idea.

UPDATE: 9:08pm, CST, The following was posted on MommyNetworks tonight, as an explanation and an apology:

To Crissy and Toyota, I am sorry

My dream has been to own my company since I was a little girl. I started MommyNetworks.org in August with the idea to help moms find work, and advertising.

Mommy Networks recently began some harmless outreach to other moms in order to build a portfolio, and increase our scope with Mom’s. I own a Toyota-Lexus and with the recent news that came out I wanted to base some outreach and case study development around this topic. I often have fun contests and give aways on Facebook.

I had a big #FAIL.

I went into a realm that was not my own. I am not a PR person, I have a background in HR, and want to help get Mommies jobs and help them find routes to advertise.

I #FAILed.

I truly apologize to everyone for this issue, and I am closing down MommyNetworks.org in order to reevaluate whether I am built for this kind of endeavor. Crissy was someone that said that she would be interested in future campaigns for advertising and reviews and this only reason I contacted her. I would never cold contact someone.

As for the Care.com issue, my designer and developer left that on my theme when I bought it.

I am responsible for going into this without experience and I am paying the price now.

I apologize to Crissy, Toyota, and everyone else. I messed up, and I hope everyone will leave this as a last comment from my side. I am open to answer questions, but hope everyone will respect my decision to simply fade away and deal with this huge #FAIL in my own way.

I had a discussion with Liz Polay-Wettengel about this this evening and she made a very good point. Bloggers – mommy bloggers in particular – must realize how important it is that they be more responsible about their content. Doing anything for a free gift card or some other perk gives an entire genre of bloggers a bad name – and that’s a bad rap.

To my way of thinking, reputation, integrity and credibility are always our most important assets (at least from a business/blogging standpoint) and if you will say or do anything for a gift card or an invitation to a party or for a free product, well then, what does that say about you?

I’m sorry that this blogger did something that she now regrets. And sorry that Toyota had to suffer some slings as a result. Once again, these are good lessons for us all. The Internet – it’s a very powerful thing.

Toyota Buying Mom Bloggers? is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m a bit of an information junkie – no big surprise to any regular reader. And finding new resources, tools and generally awesome stuff – whether it’s for the V3 team to use, for our clients, or for our friends, just makes all the time I spend trolling the Interwebs seem justifiable. At least that’s what I tell myself. (Shhhh, don’t burst my bubble).

We’ve written recently about free PR resources that you should check out, and also about how social media makes life easier, in a myriad of ways, for PR pros. And in that post, we highlighted some of the many groups, chats and other things that happen on Twitter a regular basis that you can participate in and learn from.

We’ve also written about Press Wiki, which is a terrific media database filled with info and contact information of reporters and media outlets, created and edited in true wiki style, by and for the people. We love Press Wiki!

My new favorite find is Media on Twitter. It’s exactly what the name implies (how clever) — a comprehensive database of media on Twitter. The database includes media contacts, writers and prominent bloggers from all over the world – goodness but I start to swoon just thinking about the power of this lovely tool. But then, I’m prone to swooning. In all seriousness, Media On Twitter is an amazing resource. Oh yeah. It’s a big, beautiful database.

So, whether you’re a fellow Twitter lover like this bunch of geeks at V3, or a someone who’s always looking for more great PR and social media resources and tools, Media on Twitter might just be for you. Here’s a little screenshot to whet your appetite.

What about you? Have any good resources that we need to know about? If so, bring it!

Media On Twitter – Another Great Free PR Resource is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

We recently wrote about about how social media and things like Twitter, LinkedIn and other social mediums have and are changing the relationship between PR professionals and journalists and media outlets. If you missed that post, you can read it here (and of course we hope you will) (because it’s good) and also because it contains information and links about chats and PR groups on Twitter that you might find helpful.

Social media, combined with the business community’s growing comfort level with the Internet (God, I love the Internet) (don’t judge me) have led to a lot of very smart people realizing that they can quickly and easily create their own databases, reference guides and sometimes even tools, often for free is, well, pretty awesome. Power to the people.

Peter Shankman and his Help A Reporter Out is a great example of a free online source that is used daily by reporters and writers to find information, experts and sources on things they want to write about and/or when they need quotes. There’s much more to HARO than we’ve mentioned here, and if you’ve not yet nosed around there, we encourage you to do so. In our opinion, HARO is nothing short of brilliant. Thank you Peter.

Another one of our favorite tools created in By the People, For the People mode (there’s that Internet again) is PressWiki. PressWiki is a media database that includes an ever-growing list of entries about reporters and media outlets and their contact information. Bonus!

It’s easy to create an account or edit contact info and the Wiki often includes handy dandy information like Twitter handles, links to past articles and tons of other great info. The database is editable by anyone and contains a wealth of information about news directors, editors, publishers and reporters and is a not only a tremendous resource for PR pros, but for small business owners, too.

We also use paid media distribution services (we’re trying out PRNewswire right now) and have used Cision in the past. One thing that many of our prospective clients have in common is that we find they’re often overlooking the power of PR in their marketing and communications efforts and, when we get involved, we do all we can to try and remedy that if the situation warrants. PR is an important element of just about any integrated marketing effort. Period.

We also love Jason Kintzler and Pitch Engine, which he developed sitting in the mountains of Wyoming. Pitch Engine offers a free option that you can use to test drive the service and, if you do, we’re pretty sure you’ll like it as much as we do. Pitch Engine allows you to create and share press content that includes images, videos and attachments and helps you craft releases that are not only SEO optimized, but which look killer, too. We use Pitch Engine’s paid service and find it well worth the cost, so give it a test drive, but if you like it, consider the benefits of the paid service. Another bonus!

What are other great tools or products have you discovered and/or are experimenting with? We’d love to know some of your secret sauce. And there might be some cupcakes in it for you if you share. Red Velvet. Mmmmmmm.

Photo Credit: The Very Talented Veronica Miramontes

3 Free PR Resources You Should Be Using is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Although tools like Cision and Vocus have proven to be great resources for finding and building media lists and distributing story ideas to outlets – the greatest issue for PR pros today is that oh-so-precious and ever elusive commodity: Time. Often reporters neither have time nor interest in wading through e-mail and voicemail and getting to them can be tricky, for even the most tenacious journalist. As an added wrinkle for PR folks, knowing which sources prefer which medium of communication is a bit like predicting what time my dog will wake me up in the middle of the night wanting to go out — nearly impossible!

Enter social media. With the rise of social media, other avenues have opened up for PR professionals to maintain and, in some cases further develop their relationships with reporters, peers and thought leaders in the industry and Twitter is but one of those channels. But it’s the one I’m focusing on today and hope to give you some resources that you might not yet know about, or add to the list of resources you’re already using.

On Twitter, there are ongoing chats for PR folks and journalists like JournChat, identified by #journchat, started by Sara Evans and held on Monday evenings from 7-10pm CST and Web Journalist Chat, #wjchat, focusing on tech, ethics and the journalism business, held on Wednesdays at 5pm PDT. There’s SoloPR, #SoloPR, a weekly chat moderated by KellyeCrane and held on Wednesdays from 1-2pm EST. There’s also PRChat20, #pr20chat, hosted and moderated by Justin Goldsborough and Heather Whaling and taking place on Tuesday nights from 7-8pm CST.

Those are just a few of the weekly chats taking place on Twitter focusing on journalism and PR – what other resources am I missing?

Social Media: Making Life Easier for PR Pros is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

As if BP doesn’t have enough of a mess on its hands in its efforts to apparently single-handedly set about to destroy the planet, they’ve also got a buffoon at the helm. While I realize that BP’s CEO Tony Hayward and his issues are not nearly as important as stopping the oil gushing into the Gulf, it’s hard not to watch his antics and shake my head. And then be thankful that I’m not part of the PR team charged with damage control in Mr. Hayward’s wake.

This morning’s CBS News broadcast covered the fact that BP is now focused on steps to deal with the idiotic comments made by Hayward on Sunday, when he said “nobody wants this thing over more than I do. I’d like my life back.” Can you say “massive fail on all counts” seven hundred times. Quickly. And even that wouldn’t be enough to cover how unconscionably insensitive a statement like that is. When this is the leader of an organization trying to handle what is the biggest environmental disaster of our times, how can anyone have confidence in the company’s ability to be successful? Talk about having your head in the sand, Mr. Hayward seems to have almost his entire body buried in the sand – and it’s oil-drenched sand at that.

The BP public relations team is now trying to deal with the fallout and global backlash in a myriad of ways, including an apology posted on Facebook, to the families of the men killed in the explosion that started all this. Can you imagine this being your job? I can’t.

To add public insult to environmental injury, the Huffington Post reported today that BP is using Google and paid search in an effort to manipulate public opinion. Holy craptastic, Batman, will they never learn?

There’s more. YouTube is filled with videos expressing rage at the situation, Greenpeace UK has launched a campaign to rebrand BP and people everywhere are filled with exasperation and hatred for the oil giant. This is a classic example of the public dealing with a crisis by taking to their social mediums of choice to vent and raise awareness and indignation, as well as to spread the word about their various calls to action against the oil giant.

This YouTube parody video, Big Oilmance, created by @orlandojamie is on its way to viral fame and does a terrific job of summing up how a lot of us feel about this mess.

This song is dedicated to you, BP.
Thanks for everything you’ve done

Oh, the oil, caught in a big oilmance.

BP Lies Lies
Yeah, so what, some birds die.
Laugh, laugh to the bank.
Ha ha, an oil rig sank

Blah blah, we can’t hear.
Got fingers in our ears.
Close our eyes, disappear.
This is an oilmance.

We want your money, you make us so rich.
Get on your knees, ‘cause you are our bitch.

We are BP..
Oil. Oil. Oil.
We are BP

BP Oil Spill: Further Evidence That Hayward’s Head is in the Sand is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

You’d have to live under a rock to not be aware of the massive oil spill in the gulf and BP’s as yet unsuccessful efforts to stop it. The spill is now larger than the Exxon Valdez and the worst environmental disaster in American history.

MSNBC reported just this morning that the top kill efforts failed. A long shot from the beginning, this should come as no real surprise to anyone. To date, the spill has dumped between 18 million and 40 million gallons of oil into the Gulf (depending on who you believe) following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in April.

From a PR standpoint, BP’s strategy in the handling of this disaster has always been questionable. CEO Tony Hayward’s foot-in-mouth statement in July 2009, “We had too many people that were working to save the world” doesn’t seem odd at all given that on almost every front, BP’s handling of this disaster has been inept, to say the least. Among other things, they have consistently downplayed the amount of oil that has been spewing from the broken well, the environmental impact and how tough it would be to stop the leak.

The fact that they’ve devoted little more than lip service to environmental concerns before this disaster is now a major PR focus and claims of greenwashing are, in my opinion, well-founded. Add to that the fact that their handling of this crisis in a traditional, heavy handed, old-fashioned and seriously outdated manner only serves to make the brand more reviled. And as my friend and PR guru, Alex Greenwood points out in a recent post, the fact that they’ve allowed two spokespeople to deal with this disaster instead of one only creates more problems.

U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, D-Florida, said it well recently when he stated “They keep making one mistake after the other. That gives the impression that they’re hiding things. These guys either do not have any sense of accountability to the public or they are Neanderthals when it comes to public relations.” He further opined that one of the reasons behind BP’s reluctance when it comes to the truth could be government penalties that can range anywhere from $1,000 to $4,300 per barrel of oil spilled into U.S. waters.

Greenpeace UK has recently launched a campaign to help rebrand BP’s logo and to raise awareness about the company’s plans to extract oil from tar sands. This is one of my personal favorite logo submissions, as well as the image used at the beginning of the post and you should head over and please go and vote for yours here. They haven’t published who is responsible for each link yet, but I imagine that credit will be coming soon. And, for all you creative types out there, what a great opportunity to be a part of history – go design something brilliant. The competition is divided into three categories: design professionals and students, the general public and under 18, and runs until June 28th.

All of this is a textbook example of any brand’s worst nightmare and the list just keeps growing. The @BPGlobalPR Twitter account – a runaway train that BP has done nothing to try and contain, with almost 90,000 followers to date, that number only continues to rise and is garnering considerable media attention.

Their Tweets are so popular, and their sense of humor so ridiculous they’ve now been turned into a billboard campaign – yet more headaches for BP.

Bottom line – BP needs to wake up and smell the oil slick. They need to put their not inconsiderable money where their mouths are and start realizing that the rest of us who live on this planet care about saving it. They need to start paying restitution to fisherman whose livelihoods and ability to feed their families depended wholly on their ability to fish those waters. They need to double, triple, no — quadruple — their efforts to contain the spill and keep it from causing more devastation than it already has. And they need to stop the damn thing. Now.

BP-Top Kill Failed: Every Day, More of a PR Disaster is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Kevin, who is, without question, a large man, apparently was asked to deplane a SWA flight on Saturday because he is too big to fit into one seat, and two seats, on this particular flight, weren’t available.

The issue, in a nutshell, is that they allowed him to board, be seated, and then made the brilliant decision to say “ummmm, you’re too fat” cleverly masked by “security risk” lingo, and asked him to take a hike. He had been booked on a later flight – with two seats reserved in his name – so it wasn’t like it was a surprise when he wanted to get on an earlier flight that he was a big man. But, instead of identifying a potential problem at the gate, before boarding, SWA dropped the ball, let him board, and then chose to publicly humiliate him.

Ask yourself an honest question – how would you feel if that happened to you? Fat or not fat, I imagine you would be pretty humiliated. I know I would be.

Southwest Air has addressed this “issue” via their latest blog post – which has drawn so much traffic that the site may be down as of this writing. If that’s the case, you can check out the post on their press site. I read the post before their site went down, and assume it makes them feel justified – and absolved of any wrongdoing, simply because they have a policy and they were following it. I don’t fault at all their policy regarding oversized travelers, I do, however, find fault with the way this particular situation was handled.

But, even more importantly, what a great example of how critical it is to have a social media crisis policy in place and to have the highest levels of management and customer service involved, at the onset of a situation like this one. People make noise when they feel they are treated poorly. And when you factor social media into the equation, making noise can soon be a really big deal. And turn into lots and lots and lots of noise. Factor a celebrity into the equation and it could be a nightmare. Ask Southwest Air – I’m sure they would agree. Brands need to be adequately prepared to handle situations like this and minimize exposure – and damage – whenever possible.

Still think your brand doesn’t need a crisis plan? Better think again. Better yet, go back and read Kevin Smith’s Twitter stream, supplied here via a recent post by Mashable’s @petecashmore How would your company have handled this situation?

Kevin Smith v. SWA. Still Think You Don’t Need a Social Media Crisis Plan? is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency