Settle it before it becomes a video
- Musician Dave Carroll spent nearly a year trying to get United Airlines to pay for a guitar he said its baggage handlers broke. The airline refused.
- So he wrote a song about it, United Breaks Guitars, and posted it on YouTube on a Monday in July 2009. By Thursday evening it had more than 600,000 views.
- Only then did United call him. It told ABC News: "We are in conversations with one another to make what happened right."
Source: ABC News
Once it's up, talk to the person
- Write to the creator or call them. A reply under the post won't settle it, and neither will a statement. A conversation can.
- Ask what would make it right, and fix the thing they're upset about first.
- If the first time you talk to a creator is the day they post about you, you're a stranger at that table.
- A brand with nothing to apologise for can still come out well. Taylor Guitars, which made the guitar, offered to see if it could repair it, and promised him a big discount on his next one.
Source: NBC News
When the creator is one you pay
- The damage can come from your own side: a line in a post you paid for that says too much.
- FINRA, which regulates US brokerage firms, fined M1 Finance $850,000 in March 2024.
- Its finding: M1 hadn't reviewed or approved the posts of about 1,700 influencers before they were used. M1 settled without admitting or denying it.
- On a campaign we ran for a crypto wallet, one creator's read had a line the FTC could have come after. Our team caught it before it went out, and the creator filmed it again.
- That's the same conversation, held before the post goes up instead of after.
Source: FINRA