Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on the SimplyMeasured blog. SimplyMeasured is a social media analytics company.

Fill In the Blank is a common content tactic that many big brands are utilizing to drive engagement (comments) with fans, on Facebook. If your brand is experimenting with this tactic, analyzing it against other content types is an effective way to measure performance and determine if FITB should be incorporated into your content strategy.

Using JetBlue as an example of a successful FITB posting strategy, we’ll break down how you can test and measure it as part of your ongoing content analysis.

JetBlue Baseline
JetBlue is one brand that has effectively incorporated FITB into their content strategy. Over the past six weeks, they have included FITB in a post approximately every 7 to 10 days.

Fill In The Blank Drives _______:
We analyzed JetBlue’s Facebook content performance over the 6 week period mentioned above. From this sample, we compared JetBlue’s Fill in the Blank posts against all other types of content posted on their Facebook Fan Page. Our analysis showed the following results:

…

Note: On April 12, Shashank Nigam, the CEO of SimpliFlying, presented a webinar on Customer Service hosted by Radian6. This article is modified from Radian6′s summary of the webinar. We present here some highlights from the session followed by the full webinar. You can read the original post here.

 
Customer service is real-time
Through social media, customer service has gone real-time and the expectation is now 24/7. Airline customers are turning to social media as another customer service channel. In fact, per Shashank, 71.4% of consumers’ tweets to the airlines are customer service related. Voice calls into customer service centers are projected to decline this year and there are cases where social conversations numbers are equal to voice call numbers.

With this increase in social media customer service traffic, consumer expectations have become more real-time. When asked about satisfaction levels through these new channels, Shashank sees that consumers are pleased to feel acknowledged even if the resolution is not immediate. While some of the top US Airlines are still well over an hour, the top two have their average response times to less than 15 minutes.
(see the entire infographic by Eezeer …

SimpliFlying has set out on a live experiment to show how news and ideas can be spread through social media.

How many times have you signed up for a conference  or event only after hearing that your industry peers were doing the same? For us, conference attendees are often nearly as valuable as conference speakers, and hearing first hand from peers is important in the decision making step.
Airlines in Transition Conference and Travel Distribution Asia Summit
The Airlines in Transition Conference will be held in Istanbul from April 19-20, and feature over 30 airline CEOs. As an effort to test the powers of Social Media, SimpliFlying has teamed up with conference organizer CAPA to offer an exclusive Social Media discount of $500 off of the registration price (use “simpliflying” as a discount code during check-out)

If you can’t make it for this one, then there’s the Eyefortravel Travel Distribution Summit Asia, happening in Singapore from May 9-10, 2012 where you can save $100 by using “simplifly” as a discount code during checkout.

And we’ll be present at both the conferences.

We think this is a pretty cool idea and we are determined to showcase a real-time example of how social media can …

Crises in the Air Transport industry come in many shapes and forms but they usually have three things in common: 1) no prior notice or warning signs, 2) the need to inform large numbers of people in a very short time and 3) a large number of (increasingly digital) angry/distressed people.

However, regardless of whether the crisis is something the airline did to itself , an uncontrollable natural phenomenon or a strike, there is always a need to reach large numbers of people as quickly as possible, providing information, answering their questions and avoiding the spread of false rumors.

In today’s increasingly connected world, social media has proven to be the crisis management tool, and has been used successfully by both airlines and airports in a wide range of scenarios. The reason for its effectiveness is based on two factors: the first is that it allows the kind of mass communication and information dissemination that we mentioned earlier, and the second is that they are the place where an increasing percentage of users go to complain and seek information.

At SimpliFlying we’ve accumulated a wealth of experience consulting in social-media based crisis management strategies for both airlines and airports …

In this fourth episode of our SimpliFlying Podcasts we take a closer look at the world of loyalty, starting with an in-depth discussion about the current state of the loyalty industry and then moving on to an interesting interview with Gabi Kool, CEO of Baltic Miles.

As usual the first, insights part of the podcast is free and it also contains a snippet of the interview with Gabi while the full interview with the industry expert – in this instance, Gabi Kool – comes at a price of only USD 19.

You can listen to the free version below in which Shashank Nigam, the CEO of SimpliFlying and Marco Serusi, our Community Engagement Executive, discuss and dissect the state of the loyalty industry. Alternatively, subscribe to it on our iTunes channel:

(c)2012. SimpliFlying Podcasts
Note: The HTML5 player above should work with most …

Engaging customers has always been tricky business for any company but even more so for airlines since they face geographically dispersed audiences that they need to inspire to travel.

In our view there are two key elements in this problem.  The first one is the need to be where the audience is and the second one is to find something that, while being relevant to the audience, is also able to inspire audience to part with cash and travel somewhere.
An Emerging social network
Just a few days ago we wrote about the high growth rates and airline marketing potential presented by Pinterest, the new image-based social bookmarking site. In particular we stressed how this new site had the potential to inspire travelers, and now we are seeing an early attempt by an airline to exploit this potential with the launch of the BMI Pinterest lottery.

 

Using Images Instead of Numbers for Lucky Draw
The UK-based airline created several different image boards featuring pictures from some of its destinations. Each board contains nine pins (images) that come associated with a number. To participate users have to …

Back in 2011, we published a Top 10 on the Best Social Loyalty Initiatives by Airlines that featured a location-based initiative by the British low cost carrier BmiBaby in partnership with Gowalla.  The campaign eventually evolved into a wider off-airport engagement strategy where  travel experts created virtual city tours based on Gowalla check-ins that allowed travelers to explore several different cities served by the airline.

Now, the airline has decided to further enhance its efforts to engage with people based on their location, by launching an Instagram campaign that allows communities of users to meet in person on trips sponsored by BmiBaby.
Instagram community meetings
Instagram is a free photo sharing application on iOS that allows users to take a photo, apply a digital filter, then share it on a variety of social networking services including Instagram’s own. BmiBaby was able to exploit a particular trend within the Instagram image sharing network: having “Instameets”.  Instameets are user-organized events where Instagramers take part in a “photo walk” and take pictures of a particular location or town, that are then shared on Instagram under a dedicated hashtag.
BmiBaby launched a campaign to celebrate the 4th World Instameet Day by providing free travel to members …

Whether you attended Routes Americas 2012 in Nassau, Bahamas last week and are now wishing that you could return to the sunshine and relive the conference or you missed attending this year and are hoping for a recap, this post is just what you were looking for. Our comprehensive roundup will make you feel as though you never left.

Two things that SimpliFlying loves to see are conference #hashtags and the use of social media to increase audience engagement. Both of these things were in full
effect at Routes Americas.

Leading up to the conference I quickly learned which of the socially tapped-in industry players would be attending, and was able to follow their arrivals and expectations through twitter and the #RoutesAmericas hashtag. Throughout the event many tweeters also seemed to be following along with the conference #hashtag from afar.
Sunshine and (Aviation) Matchmaking
When I arrived in Nassau, I learned that Routes also had the foresight to offer attendees a conference specific smartphone application – something that proved to be invaluable for keeping up with agendas and re-caps. Our sources at UBM Aviation Routes tell us that while the use of a Routes conference app debuted at …

Even though it seems like yesterday, our popular top 10 initiative has reached its first birthday and we’ve decided to celebrate it with a king-size slide deck featuring the best case studies from our past top 10s.

This top 50 has been designed not only to celebrate the first birthday of the SimpliFlying’s Top 10s but also to provide our readers with a unique downloadable resource that features what we think are the very best marketing initiatives put forward by airlines and airports over the past few years.
An idea-generating tool
However we do not wish this top 50 to be a sort of “museum” of past initiatives but rather a tool for airline professionals to generate new ideas. We hope that by viewing such a wide variety of outstanding initiatives in a single slide deck, other marketers will be inspired to create other new and innovative campaigns that will form the basis of future SimpliFlying Top 10s.

You will notice that each case study has a category indicator before its title. These indicators refer to the original top 10 that featured that particular case study, and have been included  to facilitate further research into the subject.
A year of top 10s
The list below provides links …

The guys at KLM just don’t rest, do they? Over the past year or two, they’ve churned out some of the most excellent social media initiatives designed to delight and engage customers while ensuring that they’re firmly in sight of ultimate business objectives such as driving revenue and loyalty as well.

KLM is well known for its social media initiatives, but the speed and quality of their campaigns is really starting to become something unique. Just a few days ago we reported about their “Meet and Seat” social-seating initiative and now they’ve surprised us again by creating a fun, and very shareable, initiative that will surely help create new positive associations with their brand. Read on:
Ever dreamed of becoming a stewardess? Or of dressing up as one?
Well, personally I haven’t, but since it’s Carnival, I decided to accept a fun assignment by trying out KLM’s latest initiative: their “Stewardress Yourself“ Facebook app. Eventually, I ended up taking some rather embarrassing (but admittedly entertaining) pictures of me as a SimpliStewardess.

The initiative has been launched trough a dedicated tab in KLM’s facebook page that houses a unique Facebook app designed to bring customers even closer to the brand. This is how …