Social Media for Nonprofits

Ever feel like a little guy who’s going up against a giant? Social media can level the playing field.  Musician, Dave Carroll, is using YouTube to bring attention to some bad baggage practices by United Airlines.  Here’s what happened in Carroll’s words:

In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didnt deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.

To see the video, click here.

My hunch is that the bad publicity is going to cost United a lot more than a guitar.  In three days, the video has had more than 640,000 views.  It’s become viral on YouTube as friends pass it on to their friends.  Carroll also is using Twitter to direct traffic to his clip.

For Carroll this will likely represent sweet revenge as well as a chance to get some very inexpensive publicity.

So what do you think? Can social media help raise the profile of your organization?

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