Five and a half secrets for airlines to drive revenue from social media: Keynote presentation from LCC Summit in Al-Ain

interesting article, but I disagree with the notion that you can't advertize your product. At the end of the day, the reason why you engage in social media (and other media for that matter) is to sell your product, in our case to "put butts in seats" and I believe that the fans that sign-up for your page expects that. But, you can't use your fan-page as a forum for posting your newsletters only. You need to engage and be involved, but one must not forget that you need to sell as well. In today's environment it is important to show that time spent on social media is not time wasted.

Debunking social media is something many people can benefit from. The biggest challenge I see around social media is driving revenue revenue from it, I know it is possible, which is seen by Dell. However, too many times I see companies and individuals using social media inappropriately. What I mean by that is they are simply putting something out for the sake of putting something out, rather, than putting something out with value. My motto is that if there is no value to your audience, then don't do it!

Excellent presentation! The content of the presentation is best. Friendly and crude in same time.

LCCs in this area should not hide their heads in the sand and ignore the future. Social Media marketing is probably ideal for LCCs who are trying to capture the young professionals who are IT and social media oriented. Five (5) years ago when Air Arabia started it appealed to a group of people who have never flown before, LCCs still appeals to this group but as they succeeded the passenger mix changed and middle class, technically savvy people became an equally important passenger segment. I have noticed Etihad, Qatar Airways and Oman Air on twitter. Of these 3 Oman Air seems to be the most active at least for the time being, how much will they sustain this effort remains to be seen.
Social Media Marketing is similar to Quality and Safety, unless the senior management especially the CEO are supporting the effort and the ensuing culture not much happens. I think that Social Media Marketing is a new business culture that an airline has to incorporate into its corporate culture, I do not mean it should replace other forms of marketing but rather complement it

Excellent presentation! Kudos and snaps all around for creativity (of the videos) and entertainment! The content of the presentation is better than I’ve seen in most other SM presentations. The one thing that social media articles and presentations seem to lack is how time consuming it is (for the company, airline or individual) to reach a large audience of people and that it doesn’t happen overnight. In addition, the fact that most people don’t have time to sit in front of their computers all day reading tweets or surfing Facebook, seems to be a neglected point as well. If airlines, (or anyone), is willing to invest the time and resources into developing social media contacts, then I feel it can be a great addition to a company’s tool box.