I’ve long been a proponent of social media over traditional Internet marketing methods like SEO, AdWords and the rest of the usual suspects.\u00a0 That’s because, I believe, what others say about you can be far more powerful than what you say about yourself.<\/p>\n
In fact, Eric Clemons<\/strong>, a professor at the famed Wharton Business School<\/em><\/strong>, touched off a small firestorm this spring when he posted an article titled Why Adverising Is Failing On The Internet<\/strong><\/a>…where he detailed all the “reasons why” behind this very thing.<\/p>\n Still, when you explain this principle to most marketer’s, they just nod their head then say “what’s the fastest way I can get top rankings in Google?”.<\/p>\n As with most things, the power of something isn’t truly appreciated until it’s used as a negative.<\/p>\n A case in point is musician Dave Carroll<\/strong> from Canada.\u00a0 He flew on United Airlines<\/strong>.\u00a0 Baggage handlers broke his expensive Taylor guitar.\u00a0 And after about 9 months of getting the runaround, United Airlines officially refused to pay for it.<\/p>\n So to exact his revenge, Dave made a video detailing his ordeal with United Airlines.\u00a0 A music video called United Breaks Guitars<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 He posted it on YouTube on July 6, 2009.\u00a0 By July 9th, it had received over 500,000 views.<\/p>\n It has also attracted the attention of major newspapers and TV shows, like the Chicago Tribune<\/strong><\/em> and Wolf Blitzer’s The Situation Room<\/strong><\/em> on CNN.\u00a0 All told, that millions worth of free advertising…all negative…for United Airlines.<\/p>\n Oh yea, it got the attention of United Airlines too.\u00a0 They are now working to resolve the situation with Dave Carroll and his guitar.\u00a0 They’ve Twittered about (http:\/\/twitter.com\/UnitedAirlines<\/a>).\u00a0 And they even claim to be using his video as part of their employee training now.<\/p>\n In other words, one guy putting together a nicely produced video has said more about United Airlines…in a negative sense…than they could do with millions in advertising spent putting themselves in a positive sense.<\/p>\n Too bad for United Airlines that Dave has two more videos in production that detail his less-than-stellar experiences with them.\u00a0 You can see Dave’s first video, the one that has created all the buzz, below:<\/p>\n