More than 7.500.000 million people know that United (Airlines) breaks guitars. But let’s start from the beginning. Social Media and Social Networks are about and for the people. People that are or will be at some point your customers. People that you want them to be your customers, regardless of what are you selling.

Now you can think that by ignoring Social Networks and not participating in them as a company that nothing can go wrong, and in fact it is better not to be a part of a social network than being there and doing the whole thing the wrong way.

But regardless if your company have a Facebook page or a Twitter account regardless of what are you doing, regardless if sales are going well or not you have to understand one thing about Social Networks. People are talking through them about your company and its products.

You can even deny the existence of Facebook, you can block access to it for your employees but that doesn’t change the fact that people are talking and people now have the power to be heard.

Watching The Top Viral Videos for 2009 by Time came across this video of someone called Dave Carroll. Dave Carroll is a Canadian country singer. I don’t listen to country music and even if I did I don’t think that I would choose him. In June Dave took a flight of United only to found when he reached his destination that his guitar was damaged! He tried to get United to pay for the damage asking them to pay for the damage they caused $200 for his $350 guitar. After he spend a lot of time talking to someone from the United stuff they finally denied to take responsibility for the damage they caused. So being a singer Dave wrote a song. The song was uploaded to YouTube and now is number one on the list of Top viral videos for 2009 with more than 7.500.000 views in just 6 months!

This is the power of Social Networks. There is no way for one person, even for a big company to reach to 7.500.000 million people in just 6 months using old media. Even “Michael Jackson Final Rehearsal "This Is It" Tour” that was uploaded in YouTube some days later has now “only” 4.500.000 views. And we are talking for the last song of Michael Jackson, the king of pop, not some Canadian country singer! Now put yourself in United shoes. Wouldn’t you rather pay the $200?

Enjoy the video :-)