United....United

The book I'm currently reading in social media is “Real-Time Marketing & PR” by David Meerman Scott. This is the second book we’ve read by Scott and it’s just as good. One of the best lessons I’ve taken away so far is the importance of responding/posting in “real-time.” Real-time means responding/posting in a timely fashion. If your company just came under fire for whatever reason, your company doesn’t have the luxury of taking its good old time and responding days, or even hours, later. Depending on the situation an immediate response might be necessary, and your company could suffer if you wait.

Now you may be thinking “duh, this is common sense” because that’s what I first thought. But you may be surprised by the fact that some companies don’t get this concept. The example Scott uses in his book is incident between United Airlines and Dave Carroll. To save some time, because no one wants to read a novel blog post, I’m going to sum up the scenario. Singer-songwriter Dave Carroll flew United Airlines and witnessed the baggage folks throw his guitar case, thus breaking his Taylor guitar. After nine months of red tape, hassle and no success in receiving proper compensation Dave wrote three songs about his experience. The first song "United Breaks Guitars" went viral and Dave became an internet sensation with news channels begging to get a hold of him. The owners of Taylor Guitars and Calton Cases jumped on the opportunity to work with Dave. United Airlines said nothing about what was going on while Dave, Taylor Guitars and Calton Cases blew up. United finally met with Dave on September 14, 2009; that was 10 weeks after Dave posted the first video on YouTube!

If you want more details you can Google the story. Taylor Guitars and Calton Cases took a real-time opportunity when they responded to Dave’s situation. Those companies gained fame from people completely outside their target audiences because they responded to an issue in a timely fashion. What I learned is that the faster you can respond the better. If your company is the one to blame for something that happened you can avoid a lot of headaches by responding in real-time. Also, if your company may in some way be able to make a connection to a situation, like Taylor Guitars and Calton Cases, you can really benefit from jumping on something as it’s happening. 

 You're welcome for getting that song stuck in your head,

Jake