One of the benfits of social media is to open communications channels with your customers. When they have issues with your company, you can reply back. It is true that customers may discuss sensitive issues, and this requires a company to cease with the command and control attitude and go with a more cooperative one. Honesty is always appreciated.

The basic rules of marketing still apply, even in social computing, a lesson that seems to be lost on employees and the owner of Ryanair. Read this.

"jason! you’re an idiot and a liar!! fact is! you’ve opened one session then another and requested a page meant for a different session, you are so stupid you dont even know how you did it! you dont get a free flight, there is no dynamic data to render which is prob why you got 0.00. what self respecting developer uses a crappy CMS such as word press anyway AND puts they’re mobile ph number online, i suppose even a prank call is better than nothing on a lonely sat evening!!

Comments on a blog and the internet are forever preserved for all to see. I, here in Canada, will never ever fly on Scotland's Ryanair, but still hope that their customers go elsewhere for a flight. Check out this customer service

"Website is not perfect, Life is not perfect… If you would work in your pathetic life on a such big project in a such busy environment with so little resources, you would know that the most important is to have usual user behavior scenarios working rather than spending time on improbable and harmless things. We very well know about these anomalies and unless it is not critical we are not going to sacrifice time to this. If you would be a serious programmer you would know these things and would not post any of this on the web if you would think it can cause us troubles, but you would report to us directly. Even you did not discover anything major you are still trying to benefit from this. If I would be you I would think of consequences this can have. If you would be a serious developer you would work out your About page as well. Or is this really about you? What is that bunch of links there? I could give my review of those websites and it would not be positive probably, but really I don’t know if you actually worked on them or what exactly you did and how big influence you had to make changes there. So keep working on yourself and don’t post bollocks."

Tools, any tools, and this includes Social Media tools such as blogs, are no better than the craftsman that handle them. Give a tool to someone with a bad attitude and they'll do damage. That being said, here's the CEO michael O'Leary stating Ryanair is considering pay toilets on their flights! That's just the shits.

Please people, Ryanair is asking you on bended knee to fly with someone else. Please comply.