Special Purpose: To explore how social media has changed how companies have had to deal with Public Relations nightmares
AG: Broken Guitar Story
Credibility: Story happened within the past few weeks
Relevance: Stories like the one I just told can quickly become PR nightmares for any business
Thesis: Companies can no longer turn a blind eye to mild customer service incidents because of the ability for social media, which is basically any user generated content, like youtube videos and blogs, to spread quickly across the internet
Preview: There are two reasons why “crowd control” is more important than ever when dealing with Public Relations issues:
1.	Social Media can spread rapidly
2.	Companies can gain a poor reputation quickly
Body:
1.	Social Media can spread rapidly
a.	Social news websites (digg, reddit, fark, Slashdot, shortnews)
b.	Internet communities (stumbleupon, forums, facebook and myspace)
Summary: So instead of having United Airlines break your guitar and only being able to tell your close friends about it or maybe vigorously text everyone in your cell phone about the incident; with social media, you’re basically given a magical microphone with the ability to tell thousands of people your story.
Transition:  If your story happens to be bad news about a certain person or business, then they suddenly have a major PR crisis on their hands, which brings me to my second point
2.	Companies can gain a poor reputation quickly
a.	can be temporary if handled
I have told you how easily it is for social media to spread rapidly across the internet and how a company can gain a terrible although usually temporary reputation because of social media. It’s interesting how one persons action can cause an entire company a major headache.