Throwing Your Weight Around Through Social Networking

I swear I didn't make up that title as a fat joke.  Honest.

Last Saturday, Kevin Smith (the writer and movie director) launched a series of angry messages on Twitter directed at Southwest Air. According to Smith, he had taken his seat on the plane, secured his seat belt and was waiting for takeoff when he was told he would have to leave. When he asked for an explanation, he was told that he was deemed a "flight risk" because of his weight. In other words, Smith said Southwest Air told him he was too fat to fly.

Smith used his gift of writing to unleash several profanity-laden Twitter updates about the situation. I don't blame him -- I'd be upset as well. But I don't have the million-plus followers that Mr. Smith has, so I doubt I'd receive the same reaction from Southwest. That reaction was a blog post written by Christi Day. Day explains that Smith's normal routine was to purchase two seats. But on February 13th, Smith elected to fly standby on an earlier flight out. There was only one seat available. The flight crew decided that Smith met their "Customer of Size" policy and would have to leave the flight because of his size -- he would require two seats.

Smith says that he was seated with the armrests down and his seatbelt fastened when he was asked to leave the plane. He also says he wasn't using a belt extender, which means he fit in the same airplane seat any average-sized person uses. Smith went on to record an episode of SModcast to explain his side of the story further. The whole thing has become a public relations nightmare for Southwest Air.

This isn't the first time some high-profile people have used social media to criticize a company or its policies. Last year, Dave Carroll, a member of the band Sons of Maxwell, watched as United baggage handlers were rough with his $3,500 guitar, damaging it. United wouldn't accept responsibility for the damage at the time. Carroll's response: write a song and shoot a video called United Breaks Guitars. Here's the video, which has received more than seven million views so far:

United responded by offering to pay for repairs, but by then it was too little too late:

And across the pond in the United Kingdom, an article written by Daily Mail journalist Jan Moir last October about the death of pop star Stephen Gately garnered a blistering response on Twitter from prominent celebrities like Stephen Fry. Fry wrote "I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathsome and inhumane." He later went on to send another Twitter message guiding followers to a link where they could express their complaints directly to the Daily Mail. As a result of the uproar surrounding the article, advertisers began to pull their ads from the Web site. 

Even I have received responses from corporate representatives after venting on Twitter. Compared to Smith, Carroll and Fry I'm small potatoes -- I have a mere 1,600 or so followers on Twitter. It turns out many companies are actively searching social networking sites for any reference to their business. Word of mouth has become important again. I'm not sure if it will remain relevant or if complaints will increase to the point that it all becomes white noise. But these cases do seem to prove the old adage that it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

Have you ever used social networking to complain about a company and received an official response?