Any branding initiative that doesn’t bring in a return-on-effort is not worth doing. Because then it becomes a hindrance. “Oh, I need to upload the photos onto the Facebook album” shouldn’t end up in deferment of important business-driving efforts. But then again, if uploading photos on Facebook is linked to the business objectives itself, then it’s a different conversation altogether.

At the Online Marketing for Travel Summit in Miami, I am shared my ideas on how travel firms (not just airlines) can drive conversion in online and social marketing. These are the slides from that presentation, with three specific ideas.

1. Converting Youtube lookers to bookers, using the Annotation tool in YouTube videos
2. Driving conversion by adding third party reviews in the booking engine
3. Using Flip.to for driving loyalty by getting people to share their travel plans

Enjoy the presentation! I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts on this, and how you drive conversion in your organization. Let’s discuss in the comments section, and on Twitter (@simpliflying)

• 5 Ways Airlines Can Drive Revenue with Social Media (Mashable.com)
• Keynote from IATA Commercial Symposium 2009 – Driving revenue for airlines from real-time customer insights on social media
• Announcing the World’s 1st Twebinar (twitter+webinar) Series for airlines (Plus: How you can win tickets worth $600)
• Travel agents can differentiate by displaying online reviews
• SimpliFlying in the Media: FOX 7, Today, Air Transport News

Note: This article and slideshow, created by me, was first published on Mashable.com.

Hundreds of thousands of travelers scrambled to find alternative modes of transportation, last minute hotel bookings and even home-stays when the Icelandic volcano disrupted air travel around Europe over the last seven days. The official figure for airlines’ losses stands at $1.7 billion in just six days, with U.K.-based airlines British Airways and Virgin Atlantic likely to suffer the most.

Though it sounds like all doom and gloom, the silver lining of this crisis is that a lot of travelers looked to social media for help, and airlines and other authorities actually rose to the challenge. Here are some examples of winning information and customer service strategies that were implemented via social media.

Deep dive into social media for airlines

As I highlighted in-depth in my previous article, EuroControl was very impressive as they rushed to update passengers about the latest information about flights through a variety of online and offline mediums.

In just seven days, there were over 55,000 mentions of #ashtag, and the usage was so widespread that only 5.8% of the tweets came from the Top 10 users –- which is generally not the case.

As you can see in the SlideShare below, airlines not only updated flight statuses, but provided customer service as well, bringing down volume on their call centers. Air Baltic [Disclosure: SimpliFlying client] even confirmed with some passengers that their hotel expenses would be covered –- all this as a public conversation.

Since my first article, I learnt of many personal stories from airline staff handling the crisis. Here’s one.

To quote one person from this stealth team at SAS, “Now we have people (volunteers!) online from about 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. Most of the time there are 3-5 people working, and using the Microsoft Communicator to chat with the other members of the team, discuss issues, and make sure only one person answers a customer’s question. In total, I think about 15-20 people in both Oslo and Stockholm have been involved directly updating social media since Thursday. In terms of fans, we went from 15,000 Thursday morning, to having passed 21,000 today.”

A Blessing in Disguise?

Both airlines and EuroControl took charge of the situation not just by sending out messages, but by leading and participating in conversations. Airlines like SAS quickly learned how to scale up the efforts when needed, with the help of volunteers from across the company.

And the next time a crisis occurs, they will be much better prepared to use social media as a valuable information and customer service tool. The most important thing right now is to take the lessons learned and develop a coherent strategy for handling future crises.

You can read the full article, over on Mashable.com. And I’d love to hear your comments, here and over on Twitter (@simpliflying)

• Exclusive Interview: How Eurocontrol battled the ashcloud crisis through social media
• [LIVE!] How airlines and EuroControl are conquering Icelandinc volcanic ash through social media #ashtag
• Simpliflying Hero, May 2010: Aurelie Valtat from Eurocontrol
• American Airlines rocks on Twitter during the AA24 security threat, while passengers tweet from the plane
• 5 Ways Airlines Can Drive Revenue with Social Media (Mashable.com)

Last week, I had the opportunity to present in front of a hall full of aviation executives from all across Latin America. This was at the IATA Wings of Change conference at FIDAE, in Santiago de Chile. The presentation was once again very well received and I was asked some intelligent questions.

As always, I’m happy to share the slides here on SimpliFlying for my readers. And I’d love to have your feedback. You can view my previous conference presentations and keynotes here.

• Presentation on airlines and social media from FTMA & Freddies 2009, now available
• Keynote from IATA Commercial Symposium 2009 – Driving revenue for airlines from real-time customer insights on social media
• Airline branding: Keynote video from Abu Dhabi, and CNBC Arabia
• Keynote on airline branding at Aviation Outlook Middle East
• Airlines 2.0: Using technology for branding through the recession – webinar slides

Dear SimpliFliers,

As many of you know (from my about page/LinkedIn/Twitter), I’m in Athens, Greece right now at the IATA Commercial Strategy Symposium 2009. It began with me leading a sold-out pre-conference hands-on workshop for airline executives on social media. Today and tomorrow I will be Chairing the e-Marketing and IT tracks.

And I also do a keynote, focusing on trigger points within the customer lifecycle on social media that can be leveraged for driving profits by an airline. And as always, I’d like to share my slides with all of you on the day of the keynote itself. They’re right below (If you can’t see them, click here)

In this presentation, I share examples of how travelers are openly sharing their travel information online, and how airlines can use this for their advantage – for driving revenue and loyalty. One very good example of this is Lufthansa’s MySkyStatus.com (read my thoughts), where you can update your real-time position while traveling, on Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to have your feedback on the presentation!

• How can airlines optimize social media content for maximum conversion? [keynote presentation]
• Announcing the World’s 1st Twebinar (twitter+webinar) Series for airlines (Plus: How you can win tickets worth $600)
• 5 Ways Airlines Can Drive Revenue with Social Media (Mashable.com)
• Five and a half secrets for airlines to drive revenue from social media: Keynote presentation from LCC Summit in Al-Ain
• Six ways social media can drive brand loyalty: Bollywood-style keynote presentation from World Brand Congress, Mumbai

My worst nightmare as a speaker comes true

In my second last speaking engagement of the year, I came face to face with a speaker’s worst nightmare. No, it wasn’t the Mumbai traffic or a lack of audience. But the fact that my peers – fellow speakers at the World Brand Congress – were so good with their acts that they used up all of my examples.

Yes, you got that right. Each and every single airline branding case study I wanted to highlight in my keynote were taken up by impeccable speakers like Dr David Rogers of Columbia University, and Judy Turner. It totally didn’t help my case that I was speaking on the second day of the star-studded conference held at the Taj Lands End earlier this month.

On the day of the presentation, I woke up at 5am, and started to totally re-do my presentation. Inspired by the overwhelming presence of Bollywood stars in the area that I was staying in, I decided to create a Bollywood-themed presentation on branding – secretly hoping that no speaker before me does that!

Just when I thought things were going well, the hotel’s internet goes down – for the day! Thankfully, I had downloaded some of the videos I wanted to show from YouTube, as well as the key examples.

Slumdog Millionaire inspired presentation on branding

So here, I’d like to share with you my presentation from Mumbai, entitled “6 ways to Build Brand Loyalty through social media – Bollywood-style lessons from Slumdog Millionaire”. I had a non-airline audience, so you’d find that the concepts can be applied to multiple industries, though I did try to bring in airline examples. I think the audience liked it, because not only was there a lot of interaction, but I was interviewed by three news channels right after (will be uploading the interviews on a later date).

For now, enjoy the presentation, and I’d love to hear your feedback.

Let’s discuss in the comments or over on Twitter (@simpliflying)

• Keynote on airline branding at Aviation Outlook Middle East
• Keynote presentation from Sydney: How airlines can have conversations with customers on social media
• Keynote from IATA Commercial Symposium 2009 – Driving revenue for airlines from real-time customer insights on social media
• Presentation on airlines and social media from FTMA & Freddies 2009, now available
• Learning from the best airlines on social media: SimpliFlying launches six airline case studies

So we all know that airlines need to be on social media, and are doing much better than previously. But ultimately, it’s all about making money. Especially so for Low Cost Carriers.

This presentation shares insights on how airlines can really use social media tools like Facebook, blogs and Twitter to drive revenue. This was originally presented as a keynote in Al Ain, UAE on October 13, 2009, at the Low Cost World Middle East Conference.

• SimpliFlying in the Media: FOX 7, Today, Air Transport News
• 3 speaking engagements on Airlines and social media in October
• Keynote on airline branding at Aviation Outlook Middle East
• Airline branding: Keynote video from Abu Dhabi, and CNBC Arabia
• Six ways social media can drive brand loyalty: Bollywood-style keynote presentation from World Brand Congress, Mumbai

Dear SimpliFlyers,

Yesterday, in Sydney, at the Australia Pacific Aviation Summit, I gave my keynote on airline branding and social media a different touch. I emphasized on the fact that airlines and airports need start moving from broadcasting messages to their customers, to having conversations about their brands with their “cult”.

Featuring case studies of over 25 airlines on social media, this was the presentation that I used for my keynote on 6 Aug 2009. It was very well received by an audience of experienced senior aviation executives. And I’d love to have your feedback on it. What do you like most? What’s the biggest challenge?

Keep Flying, SimpliFlying,
Shashank

• Six ways social media can drive brand loyalty: Bollywood-style keynote presentation from World Brand Congress, Mumbai
• LCC 2.0: How low cost airlines can use social media to engage their customers
• Presentation on airlines and social media from FTMA & Freddies 2009, now available
• Keynote on airline branding at Aviation Outlook Middle East
• Keynote from IATA Commercial Symposium 2009 – Driving revenue for airlines from real-time customer insights on social media

I delivered an Expert Keynote address yesterday to a room full of senior airline executives on how they can us social media to enhance their brands. This was at the at the LCC World Americas Summit in Miami, FL.

The presentation details why social media is important to LCCs and how they can use it immediately for customer service, sales and more. I’m sharing the slides here and would love to have your feedback on this!

• Keynote on how budget airlines can use social media for branding – Video from LCC Americas Summit 2009
• Keynote presentation from Sydney: How airlines can have conversations with customers on social media
• How can airlines optimize social media content for maximum conversion? [keynote presentation]
• Keynote from IATA Commercial Symposium 2009 – Driving revenue for airlines from real-time customer insights on social media
• Airline branding: Keynote video from Abu Dhabi, and CNBC Arabia

Dear fellow aviation and branding enthusiasts,

As many of you might be aware, I’ve been at Ft. Lauderdale in Florida today for a keynote presentation at the FTMA/Freddies Conference on the topic I love the most – airline branding and social media. I’ve just done the presentation and received a phenomenal response to it. And I’m sharing it with you here (with the videos included). I’d love to have your inputs too.

P.S: I’ll be Live Tweeting from the Freddie Awards about this year’s winners and you can follow me on Twitter here.

• Keynote on airline branding at Aviation Outlook Middle East
• Keynote from IATA Commercial Symposium 2009 – Driving revenue for airlines from real-time customer insights on social media
• Six ways social media can drive brand loyalty: Bollywood-style keynote presentation from World Brand Congress, Mumbai
• Airline branding: Keynote video from Abu Dhabi, and CNBC Arabia
• SimpliFlying in The Media: CNBC, The Straits Times, Asia News Network, AirObserver’s Blog, DrDaveHaleOnline, Travel Reviews, Travel Industry Wire, Facing the Street

63% of airline executives think that ancillary revenues will be a major source of profits in the future. But are they getting it right with the short-term moves like charging for water and then reversing the charge? Probably not. And this was the issue I addressed in my webinar entitled “Airlines 2.0: 5 ways to unleash the potential of ancillary revenues in a downturn.” The webinar was very well received with some very interesting questions asked by the participants.

And I’m sharing the slides from that webinar here. The slides include a bonus video (see slide 14) which I couldn’t show during the webinar since it wasn’t possible to do it remotely. But I’ve integrated them here exclusively for my blog readers.

Here’s what you’ll learn from these slides:

• Make un-bundling work to suit your customers’ lifestyles
  
• Entice customers through “reverse-bundling” in the recession
• Maximize existing revenue channels, without compromising the brand
• Cultivate new revenue channels using Web 2.0 tools, like Facebook, Twitter and blogs
• Increase conversion rates for ancillary channels
• Keep the brand intact while earning more per customer

I’d love to have you feedback on the slides below and please feel free to share them with those you think would benefit from it.

• Ancillary revenue: A boon or a bane for the airline brand?
• Making ancillary revenue work with brand strategy – my interview
• Exclusive webinar on airline marketing & branding: Registration now open
• Low cost airline brands get creative with ancillary revenues – lounges, shops and cargo!
• Airlines 2.0: Using technology for branding through the recession – webinar slides