The power of Social Media

        

The power of Social Media 

                   

This week, we have an interesting story that involves Harry Winsor, an 8 year old kid who sent a letter to Boeing headquarters with a suggestion of an airplane design. He drew a sketch of his idea in crayon and decided to dream of Boeing considering his design for the future. Surprisingly for his father, an ad agency CEO, the company sent a cold form response letter. Apparently Boeing did not realized that the source of the suggestion was only an 8 year old boy (I guess they received a bunch of designs from grown up people made in crayon). For obvious reasons Harry's father was not glad with the response and decided to let the world know about it through his online blog and twitter, creating a big controversy and in consequence the appropriate apology and reaction from Boeing.

Nowadays, we all know the power that the internet has in our society. Social networks and personal blogs are a very powerful weapon to spread our ideas worldwide. The information that is published every day through the web is able to transcend to the extent of affecting tremendously the image of a regular person, celebrity, school, small business or a multi-billionaire corporation. Boeing immediately reacted to the numerous comments from the followers of the advertiser's blog. They sent another letter, this time keeping in mind that the response was for a kid, and they also invited all Harry's family to a tour inside Boeing premises.

There is no doubt that the letter they sent to Harry was not appropriate. This got me thinking... Did they really read the content of the letter? Do they automatically send a form response letter despite of the source? I think the main mistake of Boeing here is that they were too systematic about sending the response letter for legal purposes rather than caring for their fans or followers who are the people that would take the time to send a proposal for the good of their business. This small incident shows the big lesson they got from it. They learned that the voice of a single person can put them on the spot with a single blog posting. That is why many big corporations now have their eyes on what is said about them on the internet, they are very careful of anything that can be harmful for their image. They have Facebook, Twitter or their own company forums in order for them to be on top of what their customers think of them.


Another thing that concern me is... what do you think it would have happened if the kid's father had not been an ad agency CEO? He probably has a good amount of followers of his blog considering he is in the advertisement business. Do you think it would have had the same impact if a regular father would have posted this on his Facebook website? I think social networks are very powerful, but also the way the information is exposed  in order to reach a big audience is a factor that plays a big part in the way online information can be effective. A simple Facebook post from a regular father could have got a few friends responses reproaching Boeing actions not causing a "big deal" about the letter response. On the other hand, the story could have been reposted by one of the blogger's friends reaching thousands of people and creating the same effect.

Also this is not the first time this has happened. Apple, another big corporation was put on the spot with a harsh response of cease and desist from their legal department to child letter around 2 years ago creating a similar controversy when the story reached the news.
Apple story

Sources
Social Media Round 1: Harry vs. Boeing

Boeing hosts 8-year-old aviation fan it had snubbed