- Facebook - 500 Million
- Facebook Mobile - 200 Million
- Twitter - 175 Million
- YouTube - 100 Million views per day / 700 Billion playbacks annually
Followers keep growing at an exponential rate and its becoming easier for consumers to voice their opinions and concerns. Unfortunately, for many business, most of those posts or videos consist of consumers venting on their dissatisfaction. One iconic example is the story of Dave Carroll, a musician, and United Airlines. It all started prior to departure when a woman siting behind Carroll said out loud "My god they're throwing guitars out there". Carroll and his friend Mike, a bass player, noticed United baggage handlers throwing Mike's bass without regard. Carroll quickly noticed his $3,500 Taylor has been thrown right before. When Carroll got his Taylor back the neck was broken (SHOCKING!). He notified United Airlines, nobody took responsibility for his guitar and he was passed from employee to employee. After nine months of communication a United Airline employee emailed Carroll a letter stating that the airline would not be taking responsibility for the guitar and would no longer communicate about the matter. Well, Carroll was not a happy customer and decided to take matters in his own hands. Carroll went ahead and make three songs about United Airlines and his baggage experience. He then made videos of these songs on YouTube and his own website www.davecarrollmusic.com, inviting viewers to vote on their ultimate favorite song. His goal was to reach one million hits in just one year, sounds ambitious right? To United Airlines' surprise Carroll's first video had over 10 million views! here is my favorite video (video # 2):
Within four days of Carroll's first video going online United Airlines took a hit of 10% equaling an approximate of $180 million or 51,000 replacement guitars. Soon after his videos went viral United Airlines tried to mend things over and donated $3,000 to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. Unfortunately it was a little too late since Carroll had been featured on the today show, CNN and even Jimmy Kimmel.
Clearly social media is a great mean for customers to voice their opinions, but is up to companies to make this a positive experience. Companies must take advantage of the multi-million followers available to them. It is pivotal to always make the customer feel appreciated for their opinion. Companies should encourage customers to participate in positive word of mouth in their social media channels and immediately act when negative comments surface.
Sources:
- http://www.youtube.com/user/sonsofmaxwell
- http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/music
- http://www.business2community.com
- Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing Strategy. Delbert Hawkins, David Mothersbaugh, Roger Best
