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 …

We have had quite a few requests to update our Twitter and Facebook tables from airports. Yo simplify the process, we’ve created a tool that allows airports to update their own data. The SMI Index Tool is an entry level ranking tool that enables airports to gauge their relative usage of social media.

To Update Your Airport’s # Followers/#Fans:
The SMI Index Tool requires you to input your 3 letter IATA airport code, number of passengers and aircraft movements. If you have a Twitter account, just enter your @airportname and press get count, which retrieves the current # Followers. The process is the same for Facebook and # Fans. To enter the data, you’ll need to enter the Captcha words (spam protection) and then press “Get Your Ranking”. This will update the information on file and provide a relative social media index ranking for your airport.

To Enter Your Airport’s Data as a New Entry:
The SMI Index Tool requires you to input your 3 letter IATA airport code, airport name, the total number of passengers and aircraft movements. If you have …

From our recent survey and analysis with many airports using social media to date, we are able to categorize the organizational adoption of social media in airports- in terms of how it is being adopted, which departments and for what purposes.

Some background into the situation is warranted as many airports have not begun the journey into using social media-we can suggest that they will fall into one of the following categories:

Skeptical -nothing tried because not convinced of benefits to any stakeholders.
Experimenting – brought in tools to begin to understand their use to a segment of use.
Practicing- have made some investment in tools and personnel and see the benefits so far.
Thriving- have made social media part of the fabric in terms of culture, objectives and are seeing impacts.

In previous posts, we suggested that the adoption of social media and it’s related technolgies be supporting various airport objectives. We can now take a look at what organizational changes may be required in terms of people, skills and methods.

We should consider the governance of social media as a communications issue and ensure that we don’t …

Now that we’ve posted our Top Twitter Airports and Top Facebook Airports, it’s appropriate to state the caveat. As one comment suggested, “we need to be careful with this type of analysis”. We agree completely. The lists were compiled with the purpose to determine which airports were using social media as part of their marketing programs. Now the hard part begins.

Airport social media marketing, to have the proper business impact, is a process of well defined strategy, tactics and execution. It must be applied appropriately and in the proper mix, using several key principles:

Core strategy development
Corporate blogging
Social media PR
Communities for feedback and research
Twitter and Facebook channels
Video as a strategic SM platform
Brand monitoring
Metrics measurement and data insights
Viral campaigns
SM 2.0 architectures

Many airports ‘deploy’ elements of social media marketing, such as, blogs, Twitter, Facebook. They do so because they feel that they are applying newest marketing techniques. But many do not fully understand the implications required to turn it into a measurable and meaningful result.

Social media is no longer an optional element in your airport’s marketing plan. It’s integral to effectively managing your brand, your airport and your reputation. As Chris Anderson, author or ‘The Long Tail’, said, “It’s …