I’m sure most of you know what social media is, and what it can do for your business, but are you aware of just how powerful it is? At no other time in history has the voice of individuals been so loud and broadcast so far. Until recently the only voices that could reach millions were those of giant corporations with monthly ad budgets the size of my mortgage!
Unfortunately that balance of power put the consumer at a distinct disadvantage and left them without a voice. Because of this many larger corporations took advantage of individuals and steamrollered over them if they had a complaint or concern regardless of whether or not it was justified. I’m sure you’ve all heard the stories, or most likely have a few of your own.
I remember my cell phone provider when I was going to college sending me monthly bills for $35.00 and me paying them, until one month they sent one for several hundred dollars. $623.89 to be exact! Now I knew this had to be a mistake, and after calling them and finding out it was for internet usage on my wireless phone (which didn’t have the capability at the time) I knew I would be able to explain and get it straightened out. I was wrong! Despite the fact that the telephone I had at the time could not connect to the internet they assured me the charges would stay until I paid them. They were wrong, my credit took a hit, and we both moved on, but I knew then that life wasn’t always going to be fair.
When a company gets so large that the individual ceases to be important things can only go from bad to worse, and prior to social media, and social networks the only recourse left to the individual was to try and spread the poor customer service story manually via word of mouth, which as you can imagine wouldn’t be all that effective, nor damaging enough for the company to take notice of.
In 2008 there happened to be a folk musician and his band travelling to Nebraska, and ended up having to land in Chicago for a quick turnaround. Sitting on the plane while the passengers started to disembark he heard a lady cry out from behind that they (baggage handlers) were throwing guitars! Sure enough looking out they saw their luggage being mistreated, and later went on to discover that a $3500 custom made Taylor guitar was badly damaged to the tune of about $1500.00!
Dave Carroll, then spent the next nine months in a back and forth battle with United Airlines while they tried to shuffle him from department to department until finally he was told to simply stop emailing them, and that they weren’t going to compensate him for his broken guitar.
He then decided to write three songs about his experience with the airline, and posted the first one to YouTube on July 6th 2009, and quickly garnered over 150,000 views in just a matter of a day or so. As you can imagine United (finally) then stepped up to try and do the right thing out of self-interest and seeing that this particular individual did indeed have a voice by offering compensation which to my knowledge was not accepted and the video was kept online, and the two subsequent videos were later released.
It’s important to note that that single video has now received over ten million views, and garnered the attention of the media worldwide, and will no doubt influence the decision of thousands of individuals thinking of flying that particular airline, especially if they have something of value to carry along with them.
I can only hope that going forward larger corporations and business enterprises will pay a little bit more attention to the voice of the individuals who make up the bulk of those same companies. In actual fact it will likely take many more such stories to have the desired effect, but seeing how the average Joe can now reach out and be heard by literally thousands of people almost instantaneously I’m hoping that day won’t be too far forward.
I myself am just a regular guy who works out of his home, has a handful of friends and very little family to speak of, but I have the ability to write a single blog post and once I hit that publish button it is seen by close to 50,000 people within 24 hours, and that number continues to get larger each day that passes.
Now it isn’t just bad news, or bad customer service that travels fast. Good customer service can easily be talked or blogged about spreading with the same intensity, and to the same audience. I think that it is this fact that will make a very significant change in the way big businesses do their business!
Now we can all take a lesson from Dave’s United story, and apply it to our own businesses. Next time you are making a decision that could impact one of your customers negatively consider the fact that the repercussions could spread far and wide, resulting in not only lost revenue, but also lost reputation for you and your company.
Instead take the time to find and offer a solution to those who might be negatively affected by a decision you’ve decided to make that impacts them in what they perceive to be a negative way. This might be something as simple as acknowledging them and listening to them and why it is they are frustrated, or it could mean issuing a refund and offering to let them keep a product for free. The important thing is that they (the customer) are leaving with a good impression of both you and the policies you have chosen to reflect your small, medium, or even large business.
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