Do you work for an airline? This five minute video on social media can change the way you do marketing

I was sent this video at 1am last night, by Stuart Barwood. Even though I was in bed, I began watching it in bed on my iTouch. Not only did I watch it completely, I couldn’t sleep for quite some time afterwards. I couldn’t help but share it with my friends, clients and well-wishers who work with airlines. Because if there is something can help someone catalyze the social media branding efforts in his airline, it’s this video.

At one point in the video, the screen flashes, “In the near future, we will not find products or services, they will find us“. A simple sentence that can have significant implications on how airlines do marketing. Add on to this the fact pointed out by Morris Sim, CEO of Circos Brand Karma, at the recent WebInTravel event in Singapore, that statistics from Alexa that showed that about 1 in 20 visitors to travel websites in APAC were at Facebook right before. Social networks like Facebook could be so helpful to our business if we know how to make use of them. The time has come to act. Enjoy the video.

The ray of light…

There’re strong indications that mindsets are already beginning to change. Just look at the number of airlines active on Twitter (squint a little on the chart below). As Rohit Bhargava mentions, “what’s now needed a vision from the highest level of marketing to…pour more internal support into the nacent social media activities starting within the company that have such big potential but are likely underfunded and underappreciated.”

And as a (very) frequent flier, and a keen social media marketer, I’m happy to help. Just drop me a line.

For those looking for where to start, some of my articles may offer some insight:

1. So you work for an airline? Here are Eleven steps to lead the social media branding initiative, and become a rockstar!
2. Five and a half secrets for airlines to drive revenue from social media: Keynote presentation from LCC Summit in Al-Ain
3. Keynote presentation from Sydney: How airlines can have conversations with customers on social media