Jason Baer from Convince&Convert had a great post yesterday on the Opportunity Economy. Here is the best example I’ve seen of this in a long while:
Musician Dave Carroll has been widely lauded for his “United Breaks Guitars” YouTube video that has now been seen more than 8.5 million times, and takes United Airlines out behind the woodshed for a musical ass-kicking. And while Carroll’s demonstration of the power of a single, scorned customer will populate business text books for decades, there’s another, better angle to the story.
Just 4 days after the United Breaks Guitars video launched, Bob Taylor and the folks at Taylor Guitars in San Diego (the brand played by Dave Carroll and broken by United), launched a “video response” on YouTube. Titled “Taylor Guitars Responds to United Breaks Guitars” it features an unedited Bob Taylor in the factory unspooling an array of helpful tidbits about airline rules, TSA guidelines, and the protective qualities of guitar cases. Useful and appropriate. And then the video wraps up with a reminder from Bob that the Taylor Guitars factory service center can repair all makes and models of guitars, not just Taylor’s and that they’ve seen it all. Guitars that were thought to be ruined, were brought back to life by the nurturing hands of the Taylor team. 450,000 views on YouTube, and counting
Taking advantage of this opportunity is understanding a couple of key elements. First that your response has to be extremely value based. Second, you have to be relevant to the topic and conversation, third you have to be authentic.
How Do You Take Advantage of That?
The first step in which you already should have accepted is that you have to become a content creator. You have to set up your organization, your business, and yourself to create content at a moment’s notice. Also you have to focus on understanding your target market and understand the opportunities that may present themselves for you to add value and be relevant. Let’s go a little deeper and go over how to implement this.
Step one is you have to listen. Setting up alerts within vertical networks, web alerts, and staying in tune with conversations in relation to your target market or brand. This should be the first step in any social engagement plan but is even more important when you look to engage in real time.