Morgan Johnston leads JetBlue's social media efforts

JetBlue’s first jump into social media was after the ice-storm of February 2007 when they needed to address their customers to talk to them about lessons learned from an operational failure. They made the decision to address customers directly through YouTube and learned very quickly that establishing a direct relationship with customers through these channels was appreciated – and also provided an invaluable resource to learn more.

On the road to greatness

When Twitter began to gain additional prominence in March, JetBlue recognised the opportunity of the real-time nature of the medium. Because users were posting their experiences as they happened, the airline could talk with them as they were travelling. This offered amazing customer recovery opportunities

Morgan admits that while he loves the communities they’ve built, and the audience they’ve developed, the best aspect of their social strategy has nothing to with their accounts. The most important thing JetBlue did was use the networks to listen to what their customers were saying about them, and using that information to affect change internally.

While JetBlue doesn’t release information specifically on the revenue generated from social media activities, there are a number of metrics they watch regularly to measure success. One metric that they spend a great deal of time on is the engagement and sentiment of their customer base. NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a core metric at JetBlue and “the ability to refine what we know about our service through surveys, emails, and social media monitoring is incredible. Particular to social, our ability to track how online sentiment and knowledge is changed depending on our ability to communicate with the online audience is incredibly useful.”

Social Media and the Art of Crisis Management

When asked about the recent crisis with the indisposed pilot, Morgan says that like any carrier, JetBlue has plans developed for any number of situations. However, the specifics around the diversion of flight 191 to Amarillo, TX was a new and unexpected scenario for them.

It’s interesting to note that the first indication that this wasn’t a standard medical diversion came from a customer’s Tweet from the plane when it landed. Many of JetBlue’s plans anticipate customers tweeting from the scene, and they plan the scale of public responses as needed.

“Suffice it to say, there was a lot of interest about what happened to Captain Osbon, so we knew we needed to move fast. However, while we needed to move fast, we also take the responsibility of reporting only verified information very seriously, and also need to respect the privacy of our crewmembers and customers.”

A JetBlue pilot captain Clayton Osbon, is removed from the plane after erratic behavior forced the crew to land in Amarillo, Texas. Source: WINA.com

Their initial blog post – and the subsequent updates were all done with a desire to balance the established goal of transparency, and the customers’ desire for information, with the responsibility to be sensitive and accurate with information. As Morgan says, “… trust we have built over the years went a long way to make our customers more understanding of the situation.”

As for internal policies regarding what employees can utter online, Morgan says that JetBlue asks their crewmembers to be responsible with their communications online, be transparent about their affiliation, and put disclaimers where needed, and above all make it clear they’re accountable for what they say, and the promises they might make to customers in online spaces. “Past that, our social network policy boils down to, “don’t be stupid.” – and we’ve had pretty good success with that to date.”

Building a co-ordinated, responsive team

JetBlue’s Social Media team is lead by representatives from their internal teams representing Marketing, Corporate Communications, and Customer Commitment. They all work together on initiatives. As the advertising team works with their ad agency on campaigns, they also work to incorporate the social components of those into their strategy.

A distributed team handles their social media strategy. The front line of their monitoring and engagement is the Real Time Recovery team. This team consists of 21 part time crewmembers based within their Customer Commitment team in the Salt Lake City, Utah area. The team has responsibility over a number of things within their operation including answering customer emails, working with operations on real time customer recovery, working with special needs customers preparing for flights, and the 24/7 monitoring and customer engagement through social media.

The Real Time Recovery team is augmented by the Corporate Communications and Marketing teams that jump in when larger issues present themselves, or when particular messages need to be presented to customers. These three teams work together with equal authority over our strategy, keeping proper checks and balances in place.

JetBlue was one of the first companies to start actively using CoTweet when it came onto the scene, and have enjoyed being part of their evolution into SocialEngage. Morgan says that the integration of Twitter and Facebook into a dashboard that allows tracking, assigning, tagging of customer comments, and tracking of effectiveness of posts is perfect for their multi-unit social team. For Facebook, they also use Buddy Media and other third party app developers where appropriate.

The importance of experimenting, adapting and talking to customers

Social media is all about the conversation. Pitches and promotions, give-aways or contests, Morgans says, are all fun, but they can be done anywhere and they’re not necessarily social. The real advantage of social media is the ability to talk with your customers, learn from them and earn their trust by showcasing your employees’ humanity.

That trust is the real opportunity. It builds the good will you may need one day, and it builds the advocates and evangelists that will fight on your behalf and share your messages to their audiences.

“We made the mistake of pitching without first earning the trust, and our messages fell on deaf ears. It wasn’t until we asked our customers what they wanted of us, that we started building the relationship that would be the foundation of our social strategy.”

As for those looking to build their own social initiatives, Morgan has some handy tips. Collaborate with your customers to come up with the product that’s right for everyone. You have ideas of what you’d like to see for goals, and they’ll most certainly have ideas on what they’d like to see. Talk it out, experiment, adapt, and never get too attached to any one particular “right answer,” it may change overnight.

Well said, Morgan! We can’t wait to see more from JetBlue this year!

Know someone who’s worthy of being a SimpliFlying Hero?

Simpliflying Heroes are individuals recognized for outstanding social media use in the world of aviation. Do you know of somebody who uses social media effectively in their airline or airport to achieve specific business results? Or do you think you fit the bill?

Then go ahead and fill up the SimpliFlying Heroes nomination form. By filling out the nomination form, you bring them a step closer to being recognized by SimpliFlying for their efforts.

• Vote for the SimpliFlying Hero of April 2012: bmibaby vs JetBlue vs Virgin Atlantic
• Five ways airlines can tame Twitter – Jesse Engle of CoTweet shares his expertise
• How does JetBlue build a strong digital airline brand?
• Getting up, close and personal with the customer – three airline case studies
• Perfect storm: JetBlue versus Southwest on Twitter – real incident

With these words Vueling’s CEO, Alex Cruz, responded to a question on the Spanish airline’s future social marketing strategy during this month’s Simplifying Podcast that featured him as a guest.

In keeping with our usual format, the podcast is composed of a 10 min introductory section where we take a look at  the latest trends in aviation followed by a 25 min interview with our guest, Vueling’s CEO Alex Cruz.

In today’s introductory section we review the importance of response times in social media and the ongoing debate over in-flight Wi-Fi and its different business model. During the interview with Alex we analyzed the following subjects:

• Critical factors behind Vueling’s success (11:30)
• Spanish market : The collapse of Spanair, high speed railways and Iberia’s new low cost subsidiary (13:40)
• Vueling’s Spanglish advertising and its cloud (22:00)
• Strategy: Hybrid, but only if cost leader (24:42)
• Vueling’s marketing channels (26:50)
• Alex Cruz’s view on social media (28:40)
• Social media ROI for Vueling (29:50)
• Rapid fire round (35:00)

(After you fill out the short form below, you will be taken to the podcast. If you wish to download it, please right-click on the player and chooose Save As/Save Link As)

 

• Episode 3 of SimpliFlying Podcasts: Industry news roundup and exclusive interview with KLM’s VP for eCommerce
• CAPA’s Airlines in Transition conference, and what I learnt from five airline CEOs about the future
• SimpliFlying launches fortnightly Marketing Strategy podcasts for airline and airport marketers
• Episode 4 of Simpliflying Podcasts: Exclusive insights into the world of airline loyalty & Interview with Gabi Kool, the CEO of Baltic Miles
• Vueling Business Class drives awareness creatively: The cloud that fell from the sky

And since I didn’t have to speak for the second time in the same week (first being the Eyefortravel summit in London), it was good to sit back and just be a sponge. I’m sharing here some of my key observations, as well as quotes from some of the CEOs at the conference.

If only flying was this simple..

1) Cost Leadership is critical

Time and again, we were reminded that a low-cost base is the most critical factor in making an airline successful. Alex Cruz, Vueling’s CEO emphasized that while they may consider code-sharing with airlines other than Iberia in the future, it will only be done if there are no incremental costs. He shared the example of how they’ve been able to put in-flight magazines on-board Vueling flights, only after the costs of producing the magazines and the cost of fuel required to carry the additional weight in the plane had been paid off fully.

It’s all [about] managing cost and only the carriers with the lowest costs will survive,” Alex said.

Azran Osman-Rani, the CEO of low-cost long haul AirAsia X, and someone I’ve looked up to for a long time, also re-iterated that vendors who pitch him products should be prepared to show how the investment is fully recovered in a given period of time. Moreover, Azran mentioned that when it comes to making profits, ”percentage market share of a destination is much more critical in making a profit than sector length”

2) Innovation may suffer, with the focus on costs

Something (a little disturbing) that emerged from all the discussion on keeping costs as low as possible, was that the focus on innovation may not be supreme. Azran was quite clear in stating that he’d rather make AirAsia X the HTC of the airline world, rather than the Apple. Which is to say he’ll offer more features at a lower cost, and have someone else be the first mover.

Unfortunately, since most of the CEOs concurred that they’d like to keep their costs low, I couldn’t really tell who’d take up the mantle and be the Apple. Perhaps a new airline startup (of which there aren’t too many), or an industry outsider (remember what Apple did to the phone market?).

3) No strict airline models

Over the three years that I’ve been part of the airline industry, I’ve seen ample debate on the dilution of the LCC model – with purists constantly favoring a bare-bones model of a budget airline, with a single plane-type, no code shares, online-only bookings etc. However, the conclusion I have reached after Istanbul is: When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Conditions should define approach.

In an interview with SimpliFlying (to be published soon), Mr Borghetti also mentioned that he sees metal-neutrality and multiple-code sharing as the future, and the days of the big-three alliances may be numbered.

Aer Lingus CEO Christoph Mueller went so far as to exclaim that, “we should clearly say that seamless product sold by alliances is a big smoke screen.”

4) Need to look beyond flying

Either way, the aviation industry is as exciting as ever. It gives me an adrenaline rush just to be part of this industry, because there’s constant change, which leads to pro-active (or forced) innovation, which ultimately translates into lots of new opportunities. Don’t you think so?

Keep flying! SimpliFlying

• Episode 5 of SimpliFlying Podcasts: Interview with Vueling’s CEO Alex Cruz and Industry Updates
• AirAsia X: a brand with a huge potential, but remember, “you’re only buying the flying”
• Airline branding: Keynote video from Abu Dhabi, and CNBC Arabia
• Five reasons why budget airlines in Asia are successful
• Five and a half secrets for airlines to drive revenue from social media: Keynote presentation from LCC Summit in Al-Ain

The Growth Story

The forerunner of Estonian Air social media was an old-fashioned customer forum that gave official, but informal answers to airline-related questions. This was the first user-generated online content and gave Esstonian Air confidence when new forms arrived. They continued with a blog where they shared slightly longer articles of public interest. This became a channel to explain background of news, route development etc.

Estonian Air’s focus has always been on integrated marketing – a collaboration of messages between all channels, giving customers only new social platforms to express and rally for what they already love, their national airline. When Facebook emerged, it did not hold a guarantee of success but they wanted to be where the customers were. When it came to Twitter, they noticed that in Estonia the tweets were from opinion leaders well-familiar with their brand.  Hence, they could not ignore that segment and have grown to be the fourth most popular account in Estonia thanks to the tone of voice and details they offer.

In 2010, Estonian Air released Flight Book, a Facebook app that allowed someone to let their friends know they are flying a specific Estonian Air flight.  Passengers were able to make contact with others on the same flight, even arrange seating together, if they so requested, at the check-in.  At the time this was the first of its kind among airlines and was an answer to how to create an online community among the community of flyers. In 2011, they began experimenting with Facebook auctions (regular, reversed, group, pay-as-you-wish) and they made Estonian Air an international sensation.

Creating the World’s First Social Loyalty Program

The success of the above-mentioned Facebook campaigns created interest within Estonian Air to continue with similar initiatives. This resulted in AirScore, the first-ever airline virtual loyalty program. AirScore “Ambassadors” share Estonian’s offers or information on their Facebook wall, including airfares, cultural and sport events taking place in Estonia. Supporters of the airline are rewarded with discounts for social media advocacy, without even having to fly the airline. Think of it as a business deal – you distribute Estonian Air’s ads and they reward you with points of various use. Through AirScore the airline enjoys increased traffic to Estonian Air’s web site, and bookings, driven via Facebook. The element of gamification that they had grown to love at auctions took a new format in the form of tiers and badges.

For some AirScore customers the ultimate goal will not be yet another ticket, but a dinner the company president or an invitation to the company birthday ball that a traditional loyalty program does not allow. Customer behavior indicates that participation in the AirScore program increases their loyalty and builds the airline’s relationships. Social media allows marketing efficiency, wide reach and will continue to be the airline’s channel of choice for future route launches and campaign distribution. To illustrate, the program reached over 1 million wall impressions in less than ten days and continues to grow. It  was awarded the respected  2011 Best social media campaign at Mega Awards in Miami, Florida, where it beat aviation industry giant Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards, a 50 million-plus member program which had just completed a multi-million dollar overhaul.

Measuring success on social media

Tero admits that this is indeed an issue with which they are wrestling a lot. “Good analytics is the key to measuring success and we are not fully pleased with the transfer of data across applications. First, we value increasing website sales through social media integration. Conversion of fans to travellers is the ultimate goal of any airline social media site. Second, we view social media as the top brand awareness site and try to educate our fans about our news, products.”

The team loves the engagement rate metrics for Facebook and believe it to be a true indicator of page loyalty. It is defined as ER=100% (Number of likes+comments)/page owner posts/ number of fans.  For example, if a post gathers 100 comments and 100 likes and they have 1000 fans on their page the engagement rate is 100% * (100+100)/1/1000 = 20% . However, the team is aware that 90 percent of likes will never return to their pages again. That is why they started looking at a new platform for customer engagement.

As for AirScore, it is steadily growing and expanding. The ambassador number is growing by 41% average, content sharing by 37%. They have over 3000 ambassadors whose audience ads up to 440,194 unique connections. Purchases are increasing as well.

Tero says that Estonian Air has observed that customers are motivated by the discount codes that they earn by sharing their offers. “We get questions like “Why do you just post this in Facebook and the web? I would like to share it with everybody and get points for it!“”

They are excited at having a database of customers in which they know their interests and what they cheer for. Tero believes this is going to be an entire new way of marketing in which you know not only the destination your passenger flies to but also their favorite movies and hobbies and the name of their cousin.

For a really small team, Estonian Air certainly punches above its weight in social media. Their social media team was cross functional until 2012.  Now they have one dedicated person and one running Twitter aside of his main duties. Surprisingly, for a team that sounds focused on measurement, they hardly use any tools except http://metrix.station.ee/ data and Bamboo Mission control by Manumatix for AirScore.

Looking to the future and tips for social media managers

As the goal of monetizing continues, jaw-dropping campaigns are in the pipeworks. Expect Estonian Air to keep following new trends and are addicted to testing world’s firsts and “tryvertising” projects. They have a goal of growing to be the nation’s second most popular Twitter account and are expanding into neighbouring markets on Facebook. They’re also trying joint cross-marketing campaigns with partners much bigger than them.

Tero says social media is mainstream today and general marketing principles are applicable now more than ever – unless what you do is absolutely fabulous or it is the world’s first, nobody is going to raise an eyebrow. Investment in new technologies is a must.  Mistakes must be taken in your stride and lessons must be learnt from them. “Who cares that groups did not sell at our Facebook auction last June? We tried and tested the market. Something nobody else had done before us.”

Signing off, Tero has two interesting tips for social media managers. First, make your social media visual:  A good designer will make your sites as much as an editor. Second, nurture your fans. Give them reasons to feel elite. He reveals that Estonian Air is working on a day code-named Aviation Geek Fest. This will be a day for social media fans to see hangars and aircraft, that will allow community feeling to grow even further.

Great insights indeed from a man with vision! We must add a special note of thanks and kudos to Gunnar Mägi for being a moving force behind Estonian Air’s social efforts. Here’s looking forward to their next great initiative!

Disclaimer: SimpliFlying was instrumental in helping Estonian Air set up its social loyalty program.

Know someone who’s worthy of being a SimpliFlying Hero?

Simpliflying Heroes are individuals recognized for outstanding social media use in the world of aviation. Do you know of somebody who uses social media effectively in their airline or airport to achieve specific business results? Or do you think you fit the bill?

Then go ahead and fill up the SimpliFlying Heroes nomination form. By filling out the nomination form, you bring them a step closer to being recognized by SimpliFlying for their efforts.

• Vote for the SimpliFlying Hero of March 2012: KLM vs Estonian Air vs SAS
• SimpliFlying launches fortnightly Marketing Strategy podcasts for airline and airport marketers
• Estonian Air crowdsourcing ideas to engage travelers as Tero Taskila takes over as new CEO
• Size doesn’t matter. Interview with Estonian Air CEO Tero Taskila reveals a grand vision for the future
• American Airlines’ AAdvantage Facebook Fans grow 84 fold in 54 hours. The most successful campaign ever by an airline?

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:

Note: The HTML5 player above should work with most modern browsers including those in mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone. However, if you’re having trouble playing the file, please use the flash player here.

Interview with Gabi Kool, CEO of Baltic Miles

In the interview we touch upon several key areas of the loyalty industry, prodding Gabi into giving us some juicy details about his company, the future of loyalty, the role of social media and more. Furthermore, thanks to Gabi’s background in the world of Hotel loyalty we also discover a some interesting lessons that the airline industry could learn from hotels.

Here are some major points touched upon in the podcast:

• Beyond loyalty, Shashank Nigam introduces the concept of “affinity” (05:45)
• How Baltic Miles has evolved over the past year (13:40)
• Gabi Kool’s take on how the loyalty industry has evolved (14:20)
• The development of Baltic Miles’ business model (16:00)
• What could aviation learn from the Hotel Loyalty? (23:50)
• Social loyalty programs and their integration with traditional loyalty ( 26:10)
• A future of consolidation in the Loyalty Industry (31:40)

Get the podcast by simply clicking the button below:

(Clicking on the link above will take you to Paypal where you can securely make your one-time purchase of $19. Please do not hesitate to contact us at podcasts@simpliflying.com if you face any difficulties in making the purchase.)

• Episode 3 of SimpliFlying Podcasts: Industry news roundup and exclusive interview with KLM’s VP for eCommerce
• The Business of Loyalty: SimpliExclusive Interview with Gabi Kool, CEO of Baltic Miles, reveals a changing loyalty landscape
• SimpliFlying launches fortnightly Marketing Strategy podcasts for airline and airport marketers
• The future of airline loyalty – lessons from Loyalty11 Conference
• Episode 5 of SimpliFlying Podcasts: Interview with Vueling’s CEO Alex Cruz and Industry Updates

We recently recorded a podcast with Martijn in which he shares some exclusive tidbits about KLM’s secrets to social media success: you can buy it at a special price of $19 here.

Late last year, a group of executives gathered for a social media presentation at a conference held in the Netherlands. Among the attendees was Martijn van der Zee, senior vice president of e-commerce at Air France KLM, who had with him a slide from a new initiative they were experimenting with. Little did he know how popular it would be at the conference – and on the Internet. Shortly after his presentation, the slide found its way online and became a viral hit, attracting millions of viewers worldwide.

The name of the initiative? Meet and Seat, a service that lets you use either Facebook or LinkedIn to view the profiles of other passengers on the same flight and choose your seat partner. The service is currently available on flights from Amsterdam to New York, San Francisco and Sao Paulo.

To safeguard passengers’ privacy, only those who have a confirmed flight reservation are allowed to take part in this programme (you can also choose not to do so) and they can view only the profiles of those who have chosen to participate in it. In addition, passengers also have the choice of deciding how much information they want to share. Finally, just in case you were wondering, the airline does not share your profile information with other companies. “The offer we want to make to our customers is that [this service is something] they can use only to their advantage,” assures van der Zee.

Feedback so far has been “very comforting” for the airline, with users split evenly between the business and economy classes, men and women, and Facebook and LinkedIn users. While he declines to reveal any further details, he says that passengers can expect their flights to get a lot more interesting in the future as KLM introduces more integrated social services.

“No fancy stuff. Just make it work.”

No stranger to social media, KLM has been distinguishing itself from the competition with its innovative campaigns such as KLM Surprise. What will probably come as a surprise to most is that they are all conceived in-house by the airline’s social media team, which comprises 35 to 40 people across different departments.

The Meet and Seat programme is the result of what van der Zee calls “co-creation” – a collaboration between KLM and its customers. The airline had been toying around with ideas to integrate the medium into more of its services and had decided to include its customers in the process because what better way to find out what they want than by asking them directly? “What they shared with us was very clear,” recalls van der Zee. “No fancy stuff. Just make it work.”

For the airline, taking on this initiative themselves means also that they have complete control over its development and the ability to “to keep it close to the KLM brand”. “Given the attention and acceptance it’s received, it might grow into a very important tool for us so that’s why we want to do it ourselves and have the option of adapting it to customers’ needs.”

The New Face of Marketing

For van der Zee, the response that the Meet and Seat programme has attracted is indicative of the radical change that the landscape of marketing is undergoing. Engaging customers “in a modern way” doesn’t have to involve a lot of money. In fact, having too polished and showy a campaign more often than not turns customers off. “People don’t like that,” he says. “We see that increasingly the effectiveness of push marketing channels is being reduced and the importance of viral or pull marketing channels is increasing. What we’re seeing is that people want real experiences, genuine messages and real actions from companies, which by definition do not cost a lot of money but require more effort.”

Dare to Fail

While this might sound like music to the ears of finance directors in most organizations, executing a social media campaign that works is a process that requires not only time but a healthy attitude to failure.  Embrace it, says van der Zee, and treat it as part of the learning process: “We’re open to failures and mistakes for the simple reason that if you don’t dare, you will never be able to create things that customers want.”

For this airline veteran, the key to carving out a “more than proportionate market share” lies in understanding how people behave online. And if the jump in online sales outside the Netherlands is any indication, it looks like the airline is doing something right in the social media realm. For the first time in five years, KLM has been posting double-digit growth figures in terms of online bookings,. If there’s one thing this proves, it’s that price is not always the determining factor when it comes to making a decision to fly with an airline. “We have many people who literally say to us, ‘We buy tickets with you because of your actions in the social space,’” says van der Zee.

Clearly, the way people are interacting with companies has changed though the same cannot be said of the latter themselves. “One clear trend is that people themselves are determining which companies they want to do business with,” he observes, adding that there are plenty of opportunities for companies to learn about customer behavior by observing the way they use social media. “[But] many companies are still underestimating this effect.”

For those companies that are able to understand and adapt to this new behavior, the benefits of doing so far outweigh what they can achieve through conventional means of marketing alone. “If you are able to do this the right way, you can reach millions of people and they’ll promote the airline for you,” says van der Zee.

“It’s the strongest marketing message you can have.”

• Episode 3 of SimpliFlying Podcasts: Industry news roundup and exclusive interview with KLM’s VP for eCommerce
• KLM Meet and Seat – social seating for airlines: Live and Exclusive from Amsterdam #meetseat
• KLM reaffirms its social media leadership with its innovative Stewardess Yourself app
• So you work for an airline? Here are Eleven steps to lead the social media branding initiative, and become a rockstar!
• Vote for the SimpliFlying Hero of February 2011 – Finnair vs Delta Air Lines vs Malaysia Airlines

Inside the Boeing 787 Dreamliner cabin

The launch of the 787 Dreamliner has been one of the most exciting aviation landmarks of the past few years and our readers will remember that our CEO Shashank Nigam and Senior Innovation Officer Shubhodeep Pal were recently able to fly on one of these aircraft at the Singapore Air Show. Long before that however, back in 2009, Shashank was able to obtain an exclusive interview with Boeing’s Colleen Rainbolt and tour the inside of a 787.

The video below was published back in 2009 and has been viewed over 670,000 times.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bombardier CSeries Cabin Tour

Staying with the “cabin” theme, the second video we’ve selected for you is an exclusive visit to another innovative aircraft, the keenly anticipated Bombardier C-series.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Air New Zealand’s CEO talks about Rico

Remember Rico? The Air New Zealand mascot to whom we waved goodbye a few months ago ? Right after it was launched, we were able to briefly interview ANZ’s CEO Rob Fyfe and ask him about this very controversial but equally memorable mascot.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Videographic on How Airlines Dedicate Resources to Social Media

And finally, one of my personal favorites, the first ever SimpliFlying Videographic. This video was part of a SimpliSpecial series published last summer and is a unique and entraining way to learn about airlines and the resources that they allocate to social media. You can also check out our infographic and presentation on the same.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We hope you enjoyed this selection of some of the best videos from SimpliFlyingTV which, in total, features almost 100 videos!

If you dig Pinterest, you can also follow a great Pinboard of our videos here. (Curious about how airlines and airports can profit from Pinterest? Read this!)

• Exclusive Video: Bombardier CSeries cabin tour – a glimpse into the future of flying
• What makes the Boeing 787 Dreamliner a brand differentiator? Video tour
• [Video Tour] Bombardier CSeries cabin and cockpit setting new standards at Dubai Air Show #avgeek #dxb11
• A Walk in the Clouds: The 787 Dreamliner Experience
• Latest photos: Inside the Boeing 787 Dreamliner cabin!

The interview is preceded, as usual, by a free industry insights section where SimpliFlying’s CEO Shashank Nigam and Community Engagement Manager Marco Serusi discuss the latest industry news, focusing on the Singapore air show and the marked shift in power from Europe to Asia.

You can listen to the free version below (industry insights) or subscribe to it on our iTunes channel:

Interview with KLM’s VP of eCommerce (Premium podcast only)

While the industry insights section of our podcast is free to listen to and download, you can purchase our extended premium podcast for only $19 if you wish to listen to both the insights and interview section.

Here are some highlights from our interview with KLM:

• How the idea of the “meet and seat” was conceived and the role of crowdsourcing in the process (11:30)
• How one slide in a presentation started the viral buzz that anticipated the launch of the campaign (12:20)
• How the social media team at KLM works (13:30)
• How KLM assesses ROI on social media (14:25)
• Privacy concerns on the Meet and Seat campaign (16:45)
• The demographics of the Meet and Seat users (19:05)
• Why KLM thinks social media marketing matters (21:30)

Purchase the premium podcast below:

(Clicking on the link above will take you to Paypal where you can securely make your one-time purchase of $19. Please do not hesitate to contact us at podcasts@simpliflying.com if you face any difficulties in making the purchase.)

• Episode 4 of Simpliflying Podcasts: Exclusive insights into the world of airline loyalty & Interview with Gabi Kool, the CEO of Baltic Miles
• SimpliFlying launches fortnightly Marketing Strategy podcasts for airline and airport marketers
• Episode 5 of SimpliFlying Podcasts: Interview with Vueling’s CEO Alex Cruz and Industry Updates
• Can AirAsiaX make the low-cost long-haul model work with focus on Asia-Pacific? Interview with CEO Azran Osman-Rani
• High Flying Tweets: 11 of the best airline or aviation bloggers / journalists to follow on Twitter

As Hisham says, it’s hard to imagine not having a social media channel nowadays, but only a few years ago, when brands were still floundering on social media, Malaysia Airlines, after cosying up in social media, set some clear objectives: to stay in touch with their customers and to understand their preferences so that MAS could enhance their journey and experience, every time they interacted with the brand.

Growing Pains

Like all good brands, even MAS chose to under-promise and over-deliver, rather than the other way round. Within the team, there was a clear focus on not chasing everything but mastering a few things so that the brand would not be diluted by low performing initiatives.

When Hisham joined MAS in 2009, the MAS communication team had already established the airline’s social media presence. However, initially, skepticism about the potential of social media had led MAS to adopt the safe, somewhat direction-less route of doing whatever other airlines were doing. Soon, however, the rudders on their social media boat slowly began functioning and MAS embarked on e-Marketing through Social Media and was rewarded with increased engagement from their customers.

Initially, and perhaps presciently, they did not jump into the race to enter all social media channels since they realised that most of their social media fans could be found on the most popular channels. Recently, however, they have tried to identify their audience at various parts of the traveller life-cycle. Today, MAS has presences on Sina Weibo as well as Foursquare.

On the road to glory

The moment that helped push MAS’s social media initiatives to the forefront was the closure of European airspace due to the Icelandic volcanic eruption in 2010. This saw a marked change in the social media landscape for the aviation industry.  Suddenly, social media was important, relevant and worthwhile. No longer was it just a channel for marketing; it was an important engagement and real-time information dissemination tool to customers.

In 2010, MAS launched their MHmobile mobile application. They partnered with with SITAlabs, and explored possible scenarios on how they could use the platform in different ways that were useful to the customer. Hisham reveals how during their brainstorming sessions he would keep returning to a scene in the movie “When Harry Met Sally”, where Harry & Sally were on a plane, talking about planning their next trip.

Eventually, building on the thought, the team came up with the idea of adding a social layer to the platform, as they saw a need for a new Facebook Commerce app that offered greater convenience to their customers. That saw the birth of MHBuddy – MAS’s then-revolutionary social-seating initiative that allows their customers on Facebook to choose seats alongside their Facebook friends if they are on the same flight. Response from customers has been heartening and Hisham firmly believes that it’s the right way ahead.

While KLM may have kicked the ball that MAS got rolling further ahead with their recently launched Meet and Seat social-seating initiative, Hisham believes that more competition is good since it ensures faster development of ideas as airlines constantly try to push forward to gain an edge over competitors.

Managing, building and measuring

Along with social media, the team managing MAS’s presence on it has evolved. Today, their social media team has 4 people including Hisham. However, other business units do have a say in what they present on social media, offering cross-functionality as well. To ensure participation, the social media team has weekly meetings – Jedi Council Meetings, as Hisham calls them – to develop and assess their social media strategy and ensure that it’s in sync with the specific end-goals that they set.

For MAS, sentiment and and traffic to the website are the two main criteria for measuring the success of their initiatives. They pay close attention to their social media presence and measure their online efforts via social sentiment analyses contained in daily (as well as monthly) listening reports which outline the main issues in the industry. Further, they also measure traffic driven to their website (web and mobile) through their social media channel through tools such as Omniture and Google Analytics. For social monitoring and engagement measurement, the MAS team uses off-the-shelf solutions but they’re keen to emphasise that the tool matters less than the actual process of managing their social media presence.

The Road Ahead

We can safely say that 2012 will be a busy year for social media as it evolves beyond its adolescence and takes flight. For Hisham, this will be an important year for Malaysia Airlines as it seeks to explore the furthest boundaries of the social space. He tells us that MAS is gearing up to exploit their social media channels to the fullest in order to attract a global audience. In his words, “we will do so by planning our conversations so that they’re customized for specific places, feature global content, and we seek to build loyalty as well as to continue building social relationships.”

Hisham signs off with some essential advice for airlines wanting to build their social media presence. First, own your end goals and be ready to improvise from time to time because social media changes in a flash. Second,  be brave enough to try new things. Ordinary voices get lost in the crowd. You will be able to discover ROI on your efforts if you strategise upfront. Last, and perhaps most importantly, know your market’s potential. Don’t be a Jack of All Trades and Master of None.

Most excellent advice from a man who has been at the forefront of the initial airline wars on social media! Congratulations once again to Hisham and the Malaysia Airlines social-media team. We look forward eagerly to what you have in store for us this year!

Know someone who’s worthy of being a SimpliFlying Hero?

Simpliflying Heroes are individuals recognized for outstanding social media use in the world of aviation. Do you know of somebody who uses social media effectively in their airline or airport to achieve specific business results? Or do you think you fit the bill?

Then go ahead and fill up the SimpliFlying Heroes nomination form. By filling out the nomination form, you bring them a step closer to being recognized by SimpliFlying for their efforts.

• Vote for the SimpliFlying Hero of February 2011 – Finnair vs Delta Air Lines vs Malaysia Airlines
• [PRESENTATION] How Airlines Dedicate Resources to Social Media – delivered at #omtravel in Miami (June 2011)
• Malaysia Airlines takes booking and check-in to Facebook. And now, you can sit next to your friend too!
• Airlines and airports in social media should think about scalability of efforts, not just buzz!
• Karlis Smiltens – the man behind airBaltic’s rise in social media is the SimpliFlying Hero for August 2010

Listen to the exclusive podcast below.

(c) 2012 SimpliFlying Podcasts

Note: The HTML5 player above should work with most modern browsers including those in mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone. However, if you’re having trouble playing the file, please use the flash player at the bottom of this post. Please also note that the podcast above has only a snippet of the interview with Azran. To delve deeper into the mind of an industry stalwart and gain some exciting secrets to the success of AirAsia and its future plans, click the Buy button above and get our premium podcast at an introductory price of only $19. You can get the free, significantly abridged, SimpliFlying Podcasts on iTunes as well!

When AirAsia X began its operations in 2007, you could practically hear the skeptics sharpening their knives as they waited – and waited – for the long-haul budget carrier to fold.

No doubt those knives were whipped out once again when the airline recently announced that it would be terminating its services to London, Paris, New Delhi and Mumbai – flights to Europe and New Delhi will cease in March while operations to Mumbai ended in January.  Despite all the I-told-you-so’s, chief executive Azran Osman-Rani remains unflustered. In fact, he maintains that the long-haul, low-cast business model is one that can work – if done right.

Of Scale and Profitability

While Europe’s weak economy, high fuel prices and taxes, as well as the visa restrictions imposed by the Indian and Malaysian governments ultimately prompted the airline to halt services to those destinations, Osman-Rani says that markets such as Australia and China are proof that AirAsia X’s model is one that can, with the right scalability and economization, turn a profit.

“The model can definitely work but the ingredients to build that success require scale. What we have proven is that in markets [where we] have built sufficient scale, they have been very profitable. In fact, [our] profit margins are higher than even some of the disclosed profit margins of the leading full-service airlines in Asia.”

Indeed, despite the disruptions caused by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan last year, the airline’s performance remained steady, netting it an on-site performance rating of 88 percent, which according to Osman-Rani “is much higher than some of the leading full-service airlines in the world.”

“Our engineering reliability rates [are] just about higher than everyone else…and if you go to the Skytrax website and look at the customer satisfaction scores for AirAsia X, we’re the highest among any Asian LCC and comparable to some of the top so-called 5-star airlines in Asia,” he continues. “We’ve developed a product that is very popular. It’s operation-sound and we can make it work and deliver profitability when we have scale and market.”

The Art of Strategizing

If there’s anything that the airline’s European and Indian sojourns have taught it, it’s that one has to prioritize. “If we want to compete, we have to let go of markets that are weak,” says Osman-Rani, adding that the airline will not be entering any new markets for the next two years but will instead focus on building up its brand and customer engagement platforms in Australia as well as Japan, Korea and China either by adding new cities to its network or increasing flight frequencies within its existing markets. “We’ve deliberately chosen the markets where we have a [strong] market leadership position and scale, by which we mean having multiple destinations in the market and strong frequencies that will connect well.”

However for many observers, it will be interesting to see if AirAsia X can maintain that position, especially when Singapore Airlines’s new low-frills carrier Scoot takes to the skies in June. The latter’s announcement that it would be operating direct Singapore-Sydney flights certainly played a significant role in putting pressure on the Malaysian government, which had been safeguarding Malaysian Airlines’ (MAS) interests up till then, to relax its restrictions on the Sydney route so that AirAsia X could be the first Asian LLC to operate to and from the Australian city starting April 1.

But what does he make of the competition? “The best way [of viewing the situation] is to look at what happened in 2004-2005,” says Osman-Rani philosophically. “Air Asia was a much smaller airline then and the entry of Jetstar and Tiger Airways into Southeast Asia made us wonder what’s going to happen to AirAsia with more competition and choice.” Fast forward seven years and it’s clear that those fears were largely unfounded.

That said, what’s going to determine which airline dominates the market isn’t a matter of who has the strongest network leadership. “The strength of the brand’s reach to customers is going to be the defining factor and it’s ours to lose if we can’t maintain that leadership position.”

In addition, there’s also the question of how fierce a rival budget airlines such as Scoot and Jetstar will turn out to be in the long run, given that much of the focus of AirAsia X’s growth will be on the north and south of Southeast Asia, which puts it in competition with larger full-service carriers such as Etihad Airways.

Entertaining Global Ambitions

Apart from strengthening the airline’s network and brand platform, Osman-Rani has grander ambitions as well and these include ideas for what he considers to be a truly global airline network hub. “The only model today is the global alliances – Skyteam, One World et cetera – and it isn’t a very strong consumer one because no one is going to say they’re going to fly SkyTeam. Everything’s still associated with the individual airline brand,” he explains. “In our model, what we’ve seen is the opportunity to create a global model anchored on one single brand – the Air Asia brand – and one single platform – AirAsia.com.”

Apart from AirAsia’s landmark tie-up with MAS, which will see both airlines capitalizing on each other’s resources in areas such as catering, ground handling and maintenance, Osman-Rani also points to AirAsia X’s collaboration with Japan’s ANA as an example, he points to how an airline can build on the same common brand platform rather than just having a loose alliance and code-sharing. “In this respect, one of the unique things that AirAsia is pioneering is how to roll this out globally. LCC is pretty much regional whereas the difference with AirAsia is AirAsia X. It is the trunk that can provide the link between the regions. For example, if AirAsia Japan establishes a very strong short-haul network, it provides AirAsia X the opportunity to come in to provide long-haul routes from Japan.”

Keeping His Eye on the Bigger Picture

For AirAsia X, 2012 is going to be a crucial one in terms of strengthening the foundations for its network, and that according to Osman-Rani means completing the task of reassigning the 30,000 passengers affected by the European and Indian flight cancellations, adding frequencies to “a couple of other existing routes” and making sure that the Sydney service goes off without a hitch.

More importantly, he is also hopeful that if everything goes according to plan, the airline won’t have to wait too long to file for an IPO. “I think if we succeed in [what we’ve set out to do] and hopefully with global equities picking up, we’d love to carry on with our plan for an IPO hopefully later in the year.”

When that happens, you can be sure the critics will be eating their words yet again.

In case you weren’t able to listen to the HTML5 version above, or if you wanted to listen to the podcast after you read the article, here it is for your listening pleasure in Flash.

(c) 2012 SimpliFlying Podcasts

Note: This is the free version of the podcast and contains the latest industry updates followed by a small snippet of the interview with Azran. If you want to listen to the full interview with Azran and gain some exciting insights as well as secrets to the success of AirAsia get our premium podcast at an introductory price of only $19. Just click the button below and you’ll be listening to it in minutes! The premium podcast also entitles you to a free copy of the complete podcast transcript. Just email us at podcasts@simpliflying.com to get it.

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