So - as i go deeper and deeper into what social media is, there are one key element that keeps poping up. How bigbrands keep undersestimating the power of social media, and how fast and strong this power can be.
Lets take a couple of examples of how bigbrands have suffered on their value because of they missing ability to cope with the power of social. First of, a very pressent and very big one - United Breaks Guitars - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo - today, it have been online a week - one week and 2,7 million views. Besides the fact that they have worked on making things right http://twitter.com/UnitedAirlines/status/2522271993. It is to late now, the word is out, and the brand is suffering more then any apology or refund for the guitars ever would do, and they are not trying to extinguish the online-fire anyway that would make up for this seemingly small mistake. They should have a good political communicator that promises that inquiries will be made in these cases, and the result would be to make a disclaimer that is so loud and clear that you would be a moron to check things in that is of value and fragile on their flights. But so far they have done none of the things - and their brand is bleeding. A rule of thumb for your brand is "your brand equals what a google search on you brand says it is"
A second and rather new example of stupid branding strategies is this one:
This could potentialy blow up in their face, if it goes viral - but it has already been exposed on their own site - a site with app. 50 mill. pageviews - this one is already hurting Guiness.
What you have to be aware of as a bigbrand, is that right know you are being scrutinized by the people that consume and use your products - if your are doing it right, you have a lot of fans out there fighting for your brand (eg Apple Fanboys) - but if you are not very aware of what you are doing, you have a very big chance of doing it wrong - if one with a little following feels offended by you, he might tell the world though a video, a song, a podcast, a picture, a flame on a forum - and if others sympatize, they join in - it goes viral, and suddenly a small thing becomes a major thing that surpasses your homepage in searches in google or bing.
Your uses choose you, you don't choose them.
