In March, when the first list of “Airports Using Twitter” was posted, we certainly generated a lot of interest in the topic by airports and others in our industry. The current list of airports using social has now grown to 143, which represents a 26% increase from the previous post of the list. The list includes many of the Top 30 International airports by size, as listed by ACI (shown below in capitals).

The rankings are straight-forward: the ratio of the number of Twitter followers to total passengers using the airport. But we  recognized that it may be more relevant to categorize airports by their relative size, i.e. by total passenger count. By ranking airports within their own category, we feel that this may better represent the airport’s effort to engage with customers through Twitter social media programs. It is felt that if airports have a higher ratio (followers to total passengers (PAX), it suggests that those airports may be more engaged with their traveling customers. More on this topic to be discussed in another post.

The Top 10 Airports Using Twitter by Category

Top 10 Twitter Airports:  …

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 …