At AirGate Solutions, we’ve just completed our July-August update of Airports Using Facebook.  We now are tracking over 160 airports, including the Top 30 International Airports, as defined by Airports Council International (ACI). In this post, we focused only on airports that use Facebook as a social media platform, as defined by an active Facebook page.

What is truly surprising is that is less than 50% of the 160+ airports, many of them top international airports, either do not use Facebook as a social media platform or we were unable to locate their site. More surprising, is the fact that we also found most airport websites do not provide a link to their social media pages (Facebook or Twitter).

Measured by an airport’s total number of Facebook Fans, we see that only 40% of the airports in our Top 10 categories are large international airports (in CAPS), as categorized ACI, ranked by total numbers of passengers.

The Top 10 Airports Using Facebook (total Fans) – U.S. Airports Only
Cleveland
Akron-Canton
Oakland
Yeager
ATLANTA
BOSTON
DENVER
South Bend
McAllen-Miller
LOS ANGELES

The Top 10 Airports Using Facebook (total Fans) – All Airports
Cleveland
Akron-Canton
SINGAPORE
Oakland
Yeager
ATLANTA
BOSTON
Budapest
DENVER
South Bend

Thanks for your many comments regarding our Social Media Index tool for airports. It was designed more as a “census” of how many …

Before applying Social Media Marketing metrics and analytics to the  streams of social messaging types coming in and going out of airports, it is important to decide on the Top Level Strategic Objectives these metrics will support. In terms of ROI, Social Media can be mapped to business and marketing values as in classical methods – that is, measuring awareness, reach and frequency of messaging. Although these metrics are usually quantifiable, Social Media brings an exciting and new exponential upside to the mix.

We attempt to lay out in a series of short Blogs, the steps required to develop a meaningful, measureable program for implementing Social Media Marketing programs in airports complete with sample metrics and methods as a guide to gauge success.

Our series will bring into play marketing best practices and tools where applicable, in support of both airport Customer Services and airport Retail. We will also share data and concepts that are working with the airlines as well.

Post 1- Mapping Airport Goals to Social Media Models

If we make the assumption that there are only 3 real measurable goals in airports in terms of REAL ROI, we can get past the “promised land” approach of Social Media.
1)    Increase Revenue (s) …

At SimpliFlying Airports/AirGate Solutions, we’ve just completed our most recent update of Airports Using Facebook.  We now are tracking 130 airports, including the Top 30 International Airports, as defined by Airports Council International (ACI). In this update, we focused on airports that use Facebook as a social media platform, as defined by an active Facebook page.

What is truly surprising is that is over 50% of the 130 airports, many of them top international airports, either do not use Facebook as a social media platform or we were unable to locate their site. Equally surprising, is the fact that we also found most airport websites do not provide a link to their social media pages (Facebook or Twitter).

Measured by an airport’s total number of Facebook Fans, we see that 60% of the airports in our Top 10 category are large international airports (in CAPS), as categorized ACI, ranked by total numbers of passengers.
The Top 10 Airports Using Facebook (total Fans)

Cleveland  (CLE)
Akron-Canton  (CAK)
SINGAPORE  (SIN)
Oakland  (OAK)
ATLANTA  (ATL)
Budapest  (BUD)
BOSTON  (BOS)
ISTANBUL  (IST)
DENVER  (DEN)
BANGKOK (BKK)

As with our previous Twitter analysis, we felt there was another to look at the results – as a metric of customer engagement. For this, we use a ratio of fans to …