Draft Press Release 1: Announcement

For Immediate Release
Date: January 25, 2011
Social Media Club of Cache Valley
1504 Lynnwood Ave.
Logan, UT 84341
661-772-7537

Every Second Tuesday of the month you may find youself listening in on a very
“I have been compared to Steve Jobs because of my ability to foresee what the general public will utilize from a technological standpoint.”

5-30 attendance
Second tues every third moths tweetups in café sabor 630 bear river heath dept. smccv.blogspot.com
Fb: /smccv events on there
Global organization started in 2005 of san fran
Other locations popped-up slc 2008 group goes down august 2008 started here 7 stated, Preston elected president
Goal: educate anyone who wants to learn about social media
Non threatening ex: old guy who keeps up with fam
Why come? Business, cause, just youre thoughts out there, 2nd most read blogger in utah can learn how to promote
Why have it? Its not going away intrapersonal comm., compared to steve jobs at forseeing what will become popular
Free

Week 1 Reading for Online Journalism

For this reading I will write a short summary of what I thought about each section.

Rules if Netiquette: I really enjoyed the language the author used in terms like newbie and words that were easy to relate to and even though it talked about complicated things it would probably still make sense to a “newbie” like my Mom.

Nobody knows you’re a dog: Did a good job at pointing out the fact that nobody knows who is really writing what they see on the internet.

How NOT to talk: This was by far my favorite section due to the fact that it is almost comical because I see this everyday in people’s communication and it also had lots of great examples.

E-mail Etiquette: Good advice for writing emails. One part that I particularly need to work on is the guides for continuing emails.

Dave Carroll Breaks United

When Dave Carroll’s 2009 YouTube post, “United Breaks Guitars,” first appeared it would have been hard to image the changes it would bring to all big businesses and the shift it would bring to the ever changing handling of public relations. This “customer complaint” has over 9 million views or almost as much as an entire world-viewership of the last super bowl. United Airlines showed many mistakes in their handlings that could have prevented this very negative image that cost their stockholders upwards of $180 million dollars in value (-10%) but the more long term effects of this (United’s stock is back up to only -2%) is the effect social media (including YouTube) has on the field of Public Relations and how it effects how businesses are ran in today’s world where everyone has a “voice.” Or as JD Lasica, writer for socialmediabiz.com put it, “The incident has gone down as perhaps the ultimate self-inflicted customer relations screw-up by a major corporation in the social media era of empowered customers.”

Unfortunately that is not what my Case Study is about. Today I will be writing about what the two parties did right and wrong in this specific scenario and offer hindsight advice, and my reasons supporting my points.

When it comes to Dave Carroll it is hard to find things that he did wrong. He is the one with the viral video that not only did more than accomplished his goal but also fast forwarded his career by hitting #1 on iTunes the week it (United Breaks Guitars) was released and putting him in great demand as a public speaker. He also was very patient in the fact that he waited almost 9 months of “hearing all their excuses and chasing their wild gooses” as his lyrics say. He also supposedly gave them fair warning that he was going to release it. And as they say, the rest is history. A couple things I especially like where how he did not except United’s late attempt to fix his guitar and how he never did comment on the giant effect this may have had on the stocks following the release of his song, by making any sort of the wrong comment he could have turned from social media hero, to life ruining extortionist.

United Airlines on the other side could have defiantly done a lot of things to prevent this from happening. They did try to make things better by donating some money to a local jazz school, and also tried to compensate after the second video was released but the damage was obviously already done. One of the biggest factors was how this Ms. Irlweg would not break company policy and instead just pushed off Mr. Carroll’s claim, and how he claimed he asked an additional three employees while the throwing of luggage was happening. How this could have been handled best would have first started with the three attendants who should have put out a call to the luggage crew to stop that immediately and then report the incident to their supervisor. What this Ms. Irlweg could have done is still not break company policy by buying him a new guitar, but compensating someway else like free first class tickets, or something else they can do. Also it would have in the best interest for United to fire those crew members involved who showed a horrible lack in customer service to prevent future incidents. One of the spokespeople also made a pretty dumb move in my opinion by calling the video, “Excellent.” It is better just to admit the mistake and say what you are doing to prevent future mishaps like this.  I think if any one of these precautions would have happened this whole PR nightmare could have prevented.

Also the best part of this whole story is that on one of Mr. Carroll’s speeches about customer service he flew United and they lost his bags! Unbelievable.

Cousin Letter

Dear Cousin,
As you know I am majoring in Public Relations at Utah State University. What you may not know is what PR is all about and what I will actually do with my degree; let me explain. Public Relations makes up most of what you read in the news, what gets public figures back in good terms with the general population, it is what works side-by-side with advertising in business settings, and in party terms: being the person who knows what all the "popular kids" like and makes sure that happens, so the party "works." It is creating win-win scenario's between to public's or groups of people, and this is what i hope to do for the rest of my life. Exciting right? Its a fast paced, always changing field of work that you must have great communication skills, and requires much more then just "liking people." It requires you to be aggressive and  persuasive yet open to new ideas and willing to compromise. My end goal for this is being the head of public relations for the Los Angles Lakers, or maybe opening up my own PR/Marketing firm with my friends in which we will specialize in social media and finding new ways to do business. Thanks for taking the time to read this letter and see you at the next family reunion.
-Bryce Brinkman