Boeing is a big time company that brings up many different ideas in the head of the average American. Maybe one thinks of the huge Boeing 747 airplanes that carried many people very far through the airways. Maybe one thinks of the work that Boeing has done with the Apollo missions to space through its work with NASA. One also might think of a high powered company that is always on the cutting edge of technology, and that it employs a large number of smart engineers, and that it produces many of the technological weapons that keep democracy safe. And many think of it as weapons producing war profiteering company that has a large interest in keeping America and the rest of the world invested in the industry of war. These many sides of Boeing are what America has in its mind. What is the truth?
According to its own website http://www.boeing.com/, “Boeing is the world’s largest aerospace company and leading manufacturer of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems.” They are proud to be one of the largest exporters in the United States, and are an international company with offices in Moscow. Hong Kong, London, along with employees in 70 other countries. They spend much effort on their website to promote the fact that they are a company that looks out for their employees and the world. Diversity and working conditions are at core of their values. Boeing states that there workers are to always be in safe conditions and that they will be paid well for their work no matter where they are working. They state on their website they always take the environment into account when they do their work. They are striving to be more environmentally friendly every day.
Quality, Integrity and Leadership are values that they promote on their website, along with customer satisfaction. Boeing website offers to the community to come take a tour and see all the technologically wonderful things that are happening at Boeing. They invite people in, and they are asking to be liked.
When first looking at the website I could not help but feel that it is being hyped up a bit. I in the beginning of the space age Boeing was probably seem as something as a marvel. They were building the best planes, and helping to send people to space. But I feel that as America’s war spending increased, so did America’s questions about Boeing. My initials thought about them team over to the negative, because of the weapons manufacturing. Something in the back of my mind links them with Halliburton and back room deals. But Boeing is a large and powerful company; they have a top notch website that promotes them as world leader in their industries. What are they doing to keep a positive image on the web, and how do they deal with negative comments. Let’s take a look.
Starting with the ever popular Facebook where one can find many Boeing related pages. There is a Boeing store that sells Boeing merchandise and models. People post pictures of the model planes that they put together, and people can rave about how great they look. It is great place for aspiring engineers to get together. It is all very positive promotion for Boeing.
They also have a Facebook employment page where they have job info available. There are people posting on the page about how much they love working for Boeing and that it is a great place to be a part of. It is again all very positive. It is smart idea to put all this out there. They treat their employee’s right and then their employees feel good about posting on the site. It would make me feel good about applying there, and it goes along with one of their values of having a positive work space.
There are also many pages set up about the many different planes made by Boeing. I do not think that they were set up by Boeing, but they serve as positive PR none the less.
The only negative thing seen on Facebook was a link to an article in the post about recent labor issues that was in the Washington Post. Most people siding with Boeing in the comment section.
The defense side of Boeing was hardly mentions and it took some work on Facebook to find a page about it. There was no place to post on this website, but telling was that only 273 people had likes this page, but over 30,000 liked a page about the Boeing Dreamliner, one of its newer planes.
On Twitter Boeing again have multiple sites set up for its different divisions, but it is all positive stuff coming from them. I don’t see much responding or feedback. The main focus is promoting new products and upcoming events.
YouTube provides more of the same. There are many videos about different planes that they have made, and space equipment. There page has people posting about how much they love Boeing and asking if they can get a job. It is all a lot of positive PR. The videos on the site also are impressive, and it is easy to see how a tech person could really get into it. They also have customer reviews on YouTube, and this is a great way to let the public know if their products really work. And the clincher is a video showing Boeing employees doing community service that impacts the areas around their plants and offices. This shows people that Boeing does care about the people and communities and is not just there to make money. The impact of the videos is one the viewer to believe that Boeing is a cutting edge company that is trying to make the future better through its technology, but also through its devotion to the people in the community.
Blogs and other aspects all seem very positive, from what I can find. There is an occasional talk about a labor issue, or a patent infringement, but most of the outlooks look good for Boeing. They have a positive image in the corporate world. They are doing a good job of focusing their PR efforts into building Boeing as a brand that is invested in the future of the world. All this runs counter to all their works on weapons for defense, but I guess even calling the defense department the defense, space and security department is a bit of PR magic. The word defense is much more benign than weapons, and tying it in with space in security is even better.
All in all I feel that Boeing is taking the lead with its image on the web. They control the content, and react quickly. They have multiple spaces on different sites so that you come across them first before you see anything independent. They are in control.
