At approximately 3:03 PM today, US Airways flight 1549, an Airbus A320, made an unexpected and certainly unplanned landing into New York City’s Hudson River. The plane was carrying 155 passengers and crew from LaGuardia Airport in New York to Charlotte, N.C. The plane literally ran into a flock of Canadian geese. The collision was enough to cause the plane to suffer engine failure. The pilot did an amazing job of landing the plane into the river. Amazingly, there were no fatalities and only a few minor injuries. Keep this fact in mind, it’s really important. Think about this, NO deaths. That’s good news.
I first learned of the accident via Twitter, not the news. I like many people decided to search for more information on the situation. I was apparently not alone. As Google Trends shows us, everyone seemed to be interested in the story.
As you can see it occupies the top 9 positions. This screen grab was taken at roughly 8:45 EST.
With all this attention and interest, you’d think US Airways would want to make sure:
- The right information was being delivered
- The positive information was being emphasized
- They were influencing the conversation
- Setup a landing page/mini site for all information regarding the situation. The site should have contained their message, their releases, and allowed people to opt-in or subscribe to a RSS feed for future updates. The mini site would allow for a central location for all things related to the accident. It would give US Airways a way to manage the conversation and ensure the information doesn’t pollute USAirways.com, where people would be booking flights. See, you kinda don’t want to mix booking a flight with information about near crashes.
- Given all the chatter online and the number of searches they needed to get a paid search campaign up quickly. I first made mention of this on Twitter around 5:00 PM EST. Why I first tweeted about the need for paid search, no one had bought any terms. When I checked again at 8:00 PM EST, US Airways hadn’t purchased any terms, but the lawyers and law firms had. That’s a big problem.
There’s two things to take away from this image. One, notice that Google has already started trending and recommending searches affiliated with the accident when you search for “US Airways.” Specifically, “US Airways Crash” and “US Airways Plane Crash” are being recommended. We can split hairs on this, but this wasn’t a crash. The term crash is usually associated with death and destruction. Remember, there were NO deaths. The second thing to notice is the first paid search term is for a law firm that’s looking to make some serious money.
Had US Airways moved as quickly online as they had offline, this wouldn’t have been a problem. But, now when people search for US Airways they’re going to be presented with language, information, and ads that are counter to the story that US Airways wants to communicate. Simply put, they missed the boat, because they forgot that online we operate in the world of NOW.
Head of Social Media at Walgreens. Interactive marketer, innovator, boat rocker, continuous learner, movie lover, risk taker, dad and all around good guy. I'm always up for a spirited conversation. These are my thoughts and ramblings, not those of my employer.
