What's on "Glenn Tilton Must Go"? It is a fully interactive sounding board for unhappy employees and travelers; anyone is welcome to share their United horror stories. A news feed in the left-hand navigational column keeps track of media coverage unfavorable to the company, while a “Quote of the day” seeks to cast United management in a less-than-flattering light. Those so inspired are encouraged to even write to Tilton directly (presuming e-mails are still going through).

These days, they might just as soon follow the lead of the United Airlines chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which last week opted not for pickets and handbills, but a full-on, social media offensive through a Web site, www.GlennTilton.com. Named after the CEO it holds accountable for the company’s problems, the "Glenn Tilton Must Go" site lays bare grievances ranging from operational shortcomings (runway delays) to perceived financial mistakes to failures in employee relations.

Having already garnered coverage in newspapers including Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and The New York Times, the site is emblematic of an employee communications and labor relations landscape that has changed with the advent of social media, say some industry observers.

“The game has changed. We don’t own all of the talking points anymore,” says Kami Huyse, a senior communicator with myPRPro in San Antonio, Texas. “No matter what your story is there’s also the story of all the other people involved.”

By not engaging in those other stories, communicators and management run the risk of being perceived as being removed from employees’ concerns.

“That adds fuel to the fire,” Huyse says. “In everything I read [on the Web site] there was a human story in the criticism, ” she says—all the more reason to engage rather than disengage with naysayers.

United managers and communicators have yet to engage the pilots on the site’s comments section (as of yesterday, there were 49 posts). And lacking any social media presence of their own, they haven’t been able to blog about the company’s perspective.

“A lot of times corporate communicators think ‘I’m not going to justify something like this with a response.’ They feel like it’s going to put fuel on the fire to respond in a public way to bloggers and blogs,” she says.

In the days before social media, certain stories would die with the news cycle, Huyse says. “That just doesn’t happen anymore. The truth is, there’s a big downside to that. Other people start telling your story and you don’t have a say in it. And that’s where things get out of control.”

Speaking in the The Sun-Times, United Spokeswoman Jean Medina called the GlennTilton.com an “obvious and predictable attempt to deflate attention” from a lawsuit the airline filed against pilots, intended to discourage what the airline deemed to be illegal sickouts. She also told the paper that she believed the union was trying to intimidate the airline into reopening a labor contract set to expire in December 2009.

An e-mail and a telephone call left with United’s media relations office was not returned by press time. Likewise, ALPA’s United chapter did not return a call from Ragan.com.

Huyse, a crisis communications veteran, says it’s never easy to stray away from carefully construed messages and actually engage critics in their own forums, but that new media realities call for a more interactive relationship with critics. More importantly, paying attention builds trust. “It’s a slow process, but you’ll win people over all the time if you do it on a regular basis.”

That said, tough talk from the management’s public relations team doesn’t seem likely to mend any wounds as approaches its second week of public lambasting. Neverthless, Robert Mark, CEO of CommAvia, a integrated aviation marketing and PR company and writer of the syndicated blog Jetwhine.com, has one suggestion that could at least begin a more productive conversation with employees.

“Imagine a United town hall meeting where employees actually had the attention of the board of directors,” Mark says. “ Imagine if the board of directors cared enough to get together for an entire day and say, ‘We want to hear from as many employees as we get in that room between eight and four-thirty with an hour for lunch and we’ll buy lunch for everybody that comes.’ Imagine that. The question you’d have to ask is why wouldn’t you do that? If your company is in such desperate straits what would you have to lose? Lunch for 500?”