Then Air Canada bungled, badly. From Amber MacArthur’s Globe and Mail column:

“The 10-year-old boy, who is fighting a terminal illness, travelled to New York City Wednesday to live out one of his final wishes, but his motorized wheelchair was damaged during transit. While Air Canada was, in fact, in the process of fixing the damage, it still took them 24 hours to communicate that to the public.”

And in that 24-hour period, public fury mounted. Here’s a sample of the thousands of vitriolic tweets being hurled at Air Canada:

From Tanner’s aunt – “So. @aircanada killed Tanner’s wheelchair. We’re now stuck at La Guardia. #tutusfortanner”

From @unmarketing – “Air Canada, you’re making an incredible day end horribly. Get Tanner his wheelchair replaced as promised that u broke” and “Air Canada made statement and lied twice. They didn’t send replacement last night or a better one soon”

From @LisaBarone – “Air Canada Ignores Dying Boy Til He Goes Viral”

And from @NirajIdea – “That’s it @aircanadacsp #fail- I am now gonna use @WestJet from now unless you get this sorted out -FAST! Get it DONE! #tutusfortanner”

Interestingly, broken-guitar-owner Dave Carroll himself blogged on the incident on rightsideofright.com with a somewhat sympathetic tone towards Air Canada:

“… I must say the airline’s response, albeit likely fueled by the groundswell of public support for Tanner, should be commended. Air Canada found a 24 hour repair shop, had the wheelchair fixed and offered an apology that took responsibility for the damage and then they looked beyond the event to offer to fulfill one of Tanner’s dreams (to go to Disneyland).”

Follow ups from @unmarketing, @herbadmother, and various commentators also acknowledged Air Canada finally came to the table and made good.

What this illustrates is:

• Air Canada is deaf when it comes to the social web; they do not have their social media antennae up
• Air Canada is mute; they do not have a voice in social media and their social channels are non-existent or ghost towns
• Air Canada is bureaucratic and slow; well, we knew that already, but it is amplified when thousands of people call them on it and they do not respond, or worse, as they did, overpromise and under-deliver

Simply put, without sonar, you have no idea the depth charge is coming to blow your submarine out of the water.

I’ve spent a fair bit of time with my clients this summer evaluating monitoring solutions, and there are many good ones to choose from.

Examples include Canadian darlings Radian6 and Sysomos (which also powers fpInfomart’s Heartbeat), American software maker Jive, French firm Alterian’s SM2, or Norway’s Meltwater Buzz – all viable commercial options among dozens to monitor social media.

Heck, even freebies like Google Alerts or SocialMention.com are better than nothing.

Companies must be prepared to listen, react nimbly, and communicate profusely or risk the wrath of the crowd.

The line between hero and zero in social media is thin. Giving Air Canada the benefit of the doubt, I’d say they inadvertently conveyed a “let them eat corn mix” attitude that inflamed and infuriated the crowd. They should learn to do better or face the digital guillotine of public opinion.

As usual, send me your feedback on Twitter at @dblacombe or via e-mail doug@communicatto.com.

Doug Lacombe is president of Calgary social media agency communicatto.