That’s a Wrap! Southwest’s overreaction to a tweet, getting paid for social media posts and “Mandatory Fun”

Friday is finally here! Is it just me, or was this a long week? Rep Ink is here to help you usher in the weekend with a look back at some of this week’s noteworthy stories you may have missed.

Southwest backpedals after punishing passenger for tweet

On Monday, Duff Watson, a Southwest Airlines A-List Member, tried to board a plane flying from Denver to Minneapolis early, which is a perk of being a A-Lister, but was told his two children couldn’t join him. Watson then tweeted a negative comment about the Southwest agent that included her first name, last initial and gate number.

When all three finally arrived at their seats, they were asked to deplane because the agent, Kimberly S., felt threatened by the tweet. Watson was forced to delete the tweet in order to get back on the plane and head to Minneapolis.

He did so, then tweeted again later about his experience. Although Southwest apologized and gave Watson and his children each $50 vouchers, the bad press is sure to cost them much more than that.

The airline has also given passengers the boot for doing absolutely nothing out of the norm, like in 2011 when they thought a Muslim woman said “It’s a go,” on her cell, when she actually said, “I’ve got to go,” because the plane was getting ready to take off.

Rewarding consumers for social media posts

Looking for a new income stream? Getting paid to post could be a viable gig in the near future, with companies like Bonzo Me and Bubblews primed to reward consumers for something they’re already doing — posting content that gets shared and gets clicked.

Created by New Jersey surgeon, Michael Nusbaum, Bonzo Me was born of the notion that users of social networks are being taken advantage of, with the social platforms, like Facebook raking in millions through ad revenue and the selling of customer information.

Its competitor, Bubblews, has been in development since back in 2012, and had more than 200,000 users during the “beta” days. As this idea gains in popularity, how will it affect content marketing as we know it? That remains to be seen, but the Facebooks of the world should find ways to reward users instead of pissing them off.

This summer, fun is mandatory

Weird Al Yankovic’s “Mandatory Fun” album debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. What’s even more impressive is that he got there without his record label, RCA, spending a dime on any of his videos to promote it. Yankovic sought out partners to help him fit the bill for the production of his videos, as well as promote them online (to be fair, they receive most of the ad revenue in return). Outlets like Funny or Die, College Humor, Yahoo Screen and Nerdist were among those who helped in this comeback that made Weird Al even larger than he was in the 80s (I’ll admit I had the “Even Worse” record, yes RECORD, in middle school).

His new and old videos can be seen on his YouTube channel, which already has nearly half a million subscribers. And just when you finally got Pharrell’s “Happy” out of your head, here’s Weird Al’s “Tacky.” Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/XsWo8apgLys