Sir Richard Branson: “Conversations about our brand are happening everywhere”

Sir Richard Branson is my hero!

We also happen to have a few things in common:

The Brit dropped out of school, bootstrapped his company, and is not afraid to take on the big players in an industry.

Check! Check! And Check! 😉

It appears we also have something else in common: the understanding that conversations on the web are changing the way we think about brands.

Speaking at the ExactTarget Conference, Branson stated:

“Today it’s harder to keep on top of these conversations. Conversations about our brand are happening everywhere, and with the internet as the great equalizer, it doesn’t matter if you know the brand intimately, or if you’ve had just one bad experience, it will be heard.”

Virgin is arguably one of the most loved brands on the internet. Even if you don’t fly Virgin–or buy any one of their other products–chances are, you think Virgin is a cool company. That doesn’t stop Virgin from realizing that even a single tweet can harm its online reputation:

A Virgin America passenger, using onboard wifi, tweeted that he wasn’t happy that his meal hadn’t been delivered. The ground team picked up on it, contacted the aircraft, and found him his misplaced meal.

Don’t be a social media monitoring Virgin. For just $18 a month, you too can monitor what’s being said about you online. 🙂