Let's say you have a complaint or a nagging issue that you want to voice out to a large corporate entity, what could you do? Well there are few conventional channels you could go about doing that.
Calling the company's helpdesk - That's not a bad idea, only problem is how long are you going to wait? Depending on the multitude of your issue, the person answering your call can't exactly make any managerial decisions, all he/she could only try to escalate the case and by the time it reaches someone that could handle the case, you might have already forgotten about it and chances are it might never reach that important decision maker.
How about sending an email to them? Sounds convenient, but let's see; firstly you will get an auto generated email reply saying that they have received your email and that they will get back to you asap, but many of times, the auto generated email might just be the one and only email you will receive and even if you do receive a human generated email reply, chances are it might probably just contain a link that refers you to a section of their official website, which in most cases does not address any of your concerns.
If all else fails and you really want to get your point across, why not try writing in to the forum of a local newspaper so you could get your letter published to the public, but what are the chances? The thing is, the newspaper would probably have tens of thousands of such letters/emails coming in everyday and the chances of your letter/email being picked up are pretty slim.
So does that mean, there is no way to voice out your heartfelt frustrations or issues? Well, you could make use of social media tools such as Facebook; it sure is easier and probably less frustrating and it has the potential to get your point across to the highest amount of people in the shortest amount of time, and best of all it's free.
That's what one individual did; being unhappy about the absurd pricing that a corporate entity is offering for a major televised sporting event, he created a Facebook page to firstly voice his concerns and also boycott the package that the corporate entity is offering, not surprisingly, he wasn't the only unhappy individual out there, in fact there are many others who has the exact same sentiments, soon enough this Facebook page connected like minded individuals by the thousands, not only did they join in to make the numbers, many took the chance to post their heartfelt views on the page. Within 3 days, the page was flooded with an avalanche of heartfelt opinions and some even shared tips on how to watch the sporting event for free, and this has also led to the attention of a local newspaper. The final outcome of still unknown, and will this force the corporate entity to revise the package? We just have to wait and see.
This example demonstrates the power and potential of harnessing social media platforms such as Facebook; in this case, as the page was just started a few days back, it has yet to get the main point across to the corporate entity, but judging by the number of people flooding in to the page, it sure looks like it's going to stir up one major shitstorm! So the next time you have a nagging concern or a complaint towards some unreachable corporate entity, forget about the conventional channels, why not set up a Facebook page instead.
