Since the fast growing of social networks, many businesses across the world seemed interesting on a marketing strategy solely based on social media. Particularly Airlines seem to be the segment that uses social media as a primary marketing approach. KLM, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue etc. are active on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube and they interact directly with most of the customers while they also do small competitions and quizzes and give the opportunity to random customers win a special prize. These new innovations are playing a big role on the spread of the new marketing strategy. Specifically, KLM has over 4 million likes on Facebook while the crown of Twitter is possessed by JetBlue which is approaching 2 million followers.
One of the reasons that the social media strategy is more successful than the common online marketing is due to its impact. To be clear, when you see an Airline countless times a day in your social media pages, you will visit their website and probably book some tickets as well. Besides, the relationship that is created between the marketing management and the customers has a personal touch. Customer service is not so cold and slow as before, now you can interact with them through comments in Facebook, only some minutes after your tweet.
To conclude, marketing through social media in the airline industry has proven to be really successful. It is widespread, penetrates all layers of a society and most important, it is the cheapest way to be close to customers. Unfortunately, not all airlines have noticed that yet, Delta and United Airlines are way back on social media marketing.
Hi, great post! I don’t really know if some airlines as you said are actually way back. It might be that they choose to be a passive social media player. A company such as United Airlines has suffered from a massive damage due to Social Media. It is possible that they stay away of Social Media to reduce the chances of suffering more damages or losses. As we have learned during the course lectures “Social Media and Social Networks”, you give up control (Impact of social media cannot be stopped or undone). The content is also amplified via the viral effect. This is great news if your company has a good image imprinted in the consumer’s mind. But if its a stigma then you can do nothing but accept the losses.