Five ways airlines can tame Twitter – Jesse Engle of CoTweet shares his expertise

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Twitter is the latest rage, and companies are flocking to it in hordes. Half of Fortune 100 companies are already on Twitter. Helping put some order to the chaos is Jesse Engle’s CoTweet – a startup that has caught the eye of big Twitter corporate players like Ford and JetBlue. CoTweet helps frontline staff collaborate in real-time conversations with the customers. And it comes packed with workflow and CRM-type tools.

How can airlines tame Twitter?

Twitter is different when it comes to branding and connecting with your customers. Twitter is all about earning the right to be heard, as opposed to putting a list of people together and sending them an email. And this is why a number of brands struggle with it.

When I met Jesse at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Boston last month, I thought he’d be the best person to talk about how airlines can get on-board this latest craze and actually master it. And he sure obliged to my request.

Watch the full interview (8:30 mins) to hear Jesse explain:

• How airlines with little money or resources can get started on Twitter (1:07)
• How to set up an initial team to handle Twitter (1:30)
• How to listen well on Twitter (1:50)
• How many minimum hours per week are needed for managing Twitter (2:10)
• How to deal with irrelevant “noise” on Twitter (3:05)
• Should an airline’s Twitter profile be personal or corporate? (4:20)
• How to scale up Twitter “operations” once they start going well? (5:20)
• Why we should talk to Morgan Johnston from JetBlue =p (5:31)
• What does a successful Twitter strategy look like? (6:25)
• What’re the future opportunities on Twitter (7:28)
• If airlines can manage frequent fliers through Twitter (7:57)

So, what do you think about airlines’ efforts on Twitter branding? Do you think Jesse’s suggestions make sense? Let’s discuss in the comments or over on Twitter (@simpliflying)