By Steve Safran, Sr. Vice President, Media 2.0 at AR&D

Vevo launched Tueday, a partnership between YouTube and three major record labels. It's either a "Hulu for music videos" or a "digital age MTV," depending on which hype you care to read. What's for sure is that, as of this writing, it doesn't work that well. However, Vevo is using social media to get out the word that it knows it's having problems - and that should be to its credit.

On Twitter, Vevo writes:



OK. I'm cool with that. They're launching and they're having difficulties. We've all experienced that. We've also experienced angry phone calls and emails from viewers who want to know what our site is down or why their favorite show isn't on. Twitter allows a direct communication between you and your audience so they know that you're working the problem. Most of the people will be satisfied with knowing you're a real person and you're aware of what's happening.

Radio station WBUR-FM here in Boston changed its program schedule this past weekend. This NPR affiliate is very popular here and its audience is, as you may guess, fiercely loyal. They are also creatures of habit, so moving around the schedule is no small thing. Whenever you make a change, there are bound to be people who are upset with you. How do you ameliorate the problem?

Tweet it.



Look at that. WBUR is even asking for comments on its schedule change. Are they going to get some nasty comments? You bet. But they'll be getting feedback from their audience directly and publicly. They may even discover a better suggestion based upon the audience's participation.

Is there a risk to Tweeting your issues? Not really. There's a chance someone will retweet your problem and add a nasty aside. But so what? They're going to put out their gripe anyway. You might as well be able to track it.

Go public when things go wrong. We're all human -- and sometimes our audience can forget that. What better way to fix the disconnect than with a social connection?