Airlines Industry – Social Media Implications

Airlines industry is going thru a metamorphosis. Airline builders are creating planes of gigantic size giving the comfort of home and bringing in efficiency. The service providers are trying to gain market share by using the best of the available planes.

The importance of the social media has gained more in the commercial usage of the airplanes. The most of the social media implications happens on the flight status. Say, a person is stranded in airport, the person gets on to the twitter, and updates to everyone on the status of his travel. Some even update their facebook status. The frustration comes out very well using the twitter where lot of people tweet about the delay in the flight timings. I believe a frequent traveler will tweet – ‘Yet another delay’ as their favorite statement. 🙂

If one looks at the statistics, it is getting much more challenging. A recent survey by some agency which has tracked over 11,000 conversations, across all the social media platforms, reveals that 49 per cent of user views were aired on Twitter, followed by Facebook at 33 per cent and Forums & Blogs at nine per cent. In US, Airlines received 6 times as many tweets they send out. Also, 186 airlines are on twitter.Disney Princess 1-Medium

Same is true in India as well. Jet Airways has highest fan following than King fisher. Spicejet has highest positive response v/s negative.

Most of the tweets are on kingfisher (may be the trouble that the airlines are having).

How can airlines capture the sentiments of the people via social media?

All users of airlines are either middle class and/or high income group.

This industry has a specialty where sophistication (gadgets) and money (richness of their clients) are at their clients disposal. If they do not adapt to the much needed change and bring in people to manage the social media of the organization, surely they will loose on the brand image. Airlines need to be quick enough to respond to the facebook messages they receive and it becomes more necessary if it is a negative one.

2012 will bring in lot of changes to the airline industry and especially with the focus shifting towards India and the growth of BRICS. Airlines need to further explore social media by first understanding the needs of the clients and accordingly create strategies to reach out and engage with them. Integration of social media as part of the marketing team can help airlines manage the reputation and retain their client base. A good strategy will add more value and expand their client base. I believe many of the Indian based Airlines do not have a Youtube channel of its own. However, Spicejet has one managed by a user called ‘flyspicejet’.

The latest entry for that is about 3 months old. King of Good times has a youtube channel, but not for airlines, but other industry verticals.

Some idea that Airlines can explore is

• Tweet and let the followers know if there is a disturbance in the airport and its surrounding areas – This gives an idea on how much alert the industry is and how good they are about taking care of the passengers

• Tweet about the new airplanes and air routes that we start to operate. Tweet if something is removed as well.

• Add advertisements into YouTube channel

• Add advertisements into Facebook

• Add new interior design and unique designs photos on Facebook and YouTube.

• Add anniversary celebrations on Facebook

• If received an award, tweet about that, make hungama on facebook and YouTube.

When everyone is moving in one direction, the airlines should not just move, but fly.