Social Media & Digital Marketing in Singapore

United Breaks Guitars: And What It’s Costing Them

It’s all over Twitter but I picked this up via Dan York’s blog: a YouTube video by a band, Sons of Maxwell, singing the song “United Breaks Guitars” which in two days has just under 15,000 views, just over 4,000 ratings (with an average of 5 stars), over 1,000 comments and plenty, plenty, of bad press.

Seriously, wouldn’t it just have been easier (and cheaper) to pay for and replace the guitar? Hell, buy the whole band new guitars and maybe it might have been a positive music video?

I go back to what was said at Ad:Tech (and covered in the GennY Podcast #6), not every initiative in social media has to be about pure, hard ROI in the form of cashflow. As I’ve said before, it’s not always about ROI, but also about what it’s costing you by not being involved in the online space.

Again let’s put that in perspective. 15,000 views at about 4 minutes each (the duration of the music video) = how much time spent on negative brand association? Buying up the equivalent amount of 30 second spots won’t save you. And nothing United Airlines does will prevent this video from being viewed again and again for many years to come either.

I bet many companies fear this happening to them.

Stop.

Mistakes are going to happen. It’s about solving them the first time and solving them right. Not about ignoring them and letting them blow up in your face.

Tags: ad:tech, cashflow, dan york, Gen Y, genny podcast, ROI, social media initiatives, sons of maxwell, twitter, united breaks guitars, youtube

Posted in Poor Practices, case studies, community, social media, social media business | 2 Comments »

Blogs Worth Reading: April

I’ve decided to take a page out of Louis Gray’s book and highlight six blogs (in no order) that have really caught my attention in April, as well as one link that I feel is a recent notable read.

1) Bryan Person – BryanPerson.com, brains of Social Media Breakfast

• Before heading to an event, study the attendee list – Keep that in mind when coming for Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 2!

2) Dan York – Disruptive Conversations, correspondent for For Immediate Release.

• When Twitter Goes Down… oh, how we have come to rely on it – A weekend the Twitterverse remembers not so fondly.

3) Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff – Groundswell, authors of Groundswell.

• Listening with Summize and Tweetscan – All companies should know this by now.

4) Brian Koh – Harmless? Bananas!, Ogilvy PR and co-creator of The Open Room.

• New marketing, but are we ready? – crap 2.0?

5) Eric Berlin – Online Media Cultist

• Good traffic, bad traffic, silly traffic, traffic traffic – In case you still think hits is the be all and end all.

6) Tara Hunt- Horsepigcow

• Tweeting for companies 101 – great case studies, read this if you’re a company.

The amount of new blogs I’m subscribing to monthly is decreasing (I suppose there’s only so much information I can process), but if you know any great ones, recommend them in the comments space below!

Tags: blogs to subscribe to, blogs worth reading, brian koh, brian leery, bryan person, charlene li, dan york, disruptive conversations, eric berlin, for immediate release, groundswell, harmless bananas, hits, horsepigcow, josh bernoff, litford, missrogue, new marketing, ogilvy pr, online media cultist, rss subscribers, social media breakfast, summize, tara hunt, the open room, tweeting for companies, tweetscan, twitter, twitter for companies

Posted in Blogs, social media | 4 Comments »