Seasoned JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater made headlines around the globe last week when he lost his cool, cursed out a passenger and exited an aircraft by deploying its escape slide – with a beverage cart beer in hand. 

It seemed everyone wanted to share their POV on the “take this job and shove it” moment. News reports included comment from Slater, the self-proclaimed “bag Nazi,” his ex-wife, passengers on Flight 1052. Even Nancy Grace had an opinion on the dramatic job exit. But I haven’t heard much from JetBlue.  

A post on Blue Tales from August 11 states:

While we can’t discuss the details of what is an ongoing investigation, plenty of others have already formed opinions on the matter. Like, the entire Internet. (The reason we’re not commenting is that we respect the privacy of the individual. People can speak on their own behalf; we won’t do it for them.)

This is understandable. But JetBlue is a company with a strong social media presence. Perhaps the co-tweeters could send messages other than stating they can’t comment on ongoing investigations? Maybe something a little more creative, like: “Our emergency slides are tested regularly” with a link to relevant news coverage?  Though, this is probably easier said than done, as legal issues are undoubtedly at play.

The buzz surrounding the Slater incident is huge. This could be carpe diem moment for JetBlue. The company could embrace the Slater-related publicity and remind the public why JetBlue has hundreds of thousands of brand ambassadors -including great customer service, an engaging online presence, the most leg room in coach, and an outstanding safety record.

In the past, JetBlue has been a company with personality and strong customer interactions. Just because Slater left everyone wondering WTH, JetBlue corporate shouldn’t do the same.

Businesses of all types are joining the Twitter craze as a way to communicate directly with their customers. We recently participated in a webinar offered by Bulldog Reporter and led by two social media gurus from Ogilvy. For those who chose not to pay the $300, here are some highlights:

Who’s using Twitter?

Twitter receives more than 3 million unique visitors per month and has grown 5 percent per day on average since September. Sixty percent of Twitter users are male.  Twitter’s largest age demographic is 35 to 44 who make up 25.9 percent of the total user base.

Twitter is being used by business for the following purposes:

1. Customer Relations (e.g. comcastcares w/ nearly 5K followers)
2. Crisis Management (e.g. JetBlue w/ about 6K followers)
3. Corporate Reputation Management (e.g. Zappos w/ about 20K followers)
4. Event Activation (e.g. twitter #votereport w/ 11,000 tweets)
5. Issue Advocacy (e.g. redcross w/ more than 2K followers)
6. Product Promotion and Sales (e.g. delloutlet w/ more than 2K followers and sales of $500K)
7. Internal Communications (via Yammer)

Public relations professionals are using Twitter to pitch the media using a technique called twitpitch, which was coined by social media impresario Stowe Boyd.

There was plenty of other information shared, such as the rules of engagement, the ins and outs of developing a handle and top Twitter tools. The bottom line is that using Twitter as an effective corporate communications tool requires a commitment. A company needs to understand the culture of the Twitter community, be transparent in its intentions and engage in a two-way dialogue. You can’t simply create a handle and broadcast your messages without participating in the conversation. Not for long anyway. Along those lines, a company needs to follow its followers. When I signed up to follow Barack Obama, I immediately received a note saying “he” was following me.

Talking directly to consumers through social media is changing the way public relations gets done. And Twitter continues to expand its reign of influence every day. By the way, my handle is rosecomm. See you on Twitter.