When I think about online brand reputation and the importance of SEO monitoring, one case comes immediately to my mind. It’s definitely a great example of how the internet has become a great customer channel and the companies have to learn how to adapt themselves to that.

In the spring of 2008, the country music singer Dave Carroll was traveling to Nebraska with United Airlines and witnessed his guitar being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in his connection in Chicago. As a result, his $3500 guitar was severely damaged.

After 9 months complaining and trying to get a refund - which didn’t happen - Carroll decided to produce a video about the situation and post it on the YouTube. The popular video brought a terrible brand reputation problem to the airline company.  Eventually the company admitted the problem and asked Carroll to use his video to train its employees.

So far, the video has been seeing by over 5 million people. Click here to view the video.

Not happy with only an apology, Carroll created a second video. Posted on YouTube two months ago, the video has over 365,000 views so far. Click here to see United breaks guitars 2.