Reflection on Social Media Case 12: United Breaks Guitars

This case is a perfect example of the power of social media. People love rallying around things they can relate to. United mishandled Dave Carroll's guitar and so after he went through the proper procedure of dealing with it, he decided to write a song about it. I think we all have been mistreated by airlines. Overall, flying is never a glorious experience, unless you spend the money to make it that way. I think people rallied around Carrroll's song because they have had similar experiences. Furthermore, when something is considered "not right" on the social media starts trending, it spreads like wildfire. Carroll was also wise to create three different types of the song and have people vote for their favorite. Polls, trivia, and surveys all help your content go viral. They help the viewers feel more involved and increase confirmation bias. Carroll wanted a lot of attention because he didn't receive good service, but he used this attention to his advantage and he gained a lot of traction because of his efforts. It's interesting to consider the role of defamation in social media. United could probably present a decent case for defamation of character, but this would be unwise. This already hurt their reputation so much and if they took down Carroll, I'm sure other customers would have spoken about their personal experiences with United to prove the point that this is a trend. The best thing United could have done in this experience would be to take ownership and in time start working on saving face. In the West we do not value saving face as much as the eastern side of the world. Nonetheless, it is still important for us to keep our brand pure. United is still working to improve their brand, but this was just the start of their poor customer service slipping through the cracks to the public.

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 18, 2018 at 3:11 PM

    Think United should've taken ownership as well, rather than save face. Good Post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. badgeraustinApril 18, 2018 at 5:03 PM

    I think airplanes are pretty cool. Bummer about the guitar

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownApril 19, 2018 at 11:34 AM

    I agree that United should have taken ownership. Great post!

    ReplyDelete

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