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 …

The new kid on the social block
In the world of social media Google Plus is currently the youngest and least understood (albeit, fast rising in popularity) kid on the block. Over its relatively short life it has earned its fair share of both lovers and haters, generating an interesting debate on what it will become when it grows up, and whether it is worth investing in it.

When Google Plus was finally opened to businesses with the launch of its business pages there was a rush from companies all over the world to get a G+ page, but as our CEO Shashank Nigam warned in an article about the potential pitfalls for airlines using Google Plus, few of these companies seemed to have a clear idea of what to do with this new platform.
Let’s get some hard data
To get some clarity and hard data SimpliFlying did what it does best: walk the talk! We got ourselves a brand page on Google Plus and sent one of our team-members on a data-finding mission. While signs of progress on this particular social network is admittedly slow, after a week of relentless searching, we have come up with the first ever snapshot …

On the morning of December 1st 2011, the world woke up feeling a little empty and sad: Rico, the Air New Zealand mascot, had been “killed”. Eleven days after the unthinkable happened, and thanks to the help of Rico’s Facebook followers the “killer”, Richard Simmons, confessed his “crime”.

Even though he is no more, for marketers and air transport professionals alike Rico will live forever as part of our memories, presentations and as a source of inspiration for future strategies. What follows is a resume of his brief but well-lived life that, hopefully, will help us remember his best moments and better understand the marketing strategy for which he was created, due to which he thrived, lived and, sadly, was done away with.

Rico’s character was originally launched in October 2010 to promote Air New Zealand’s premium economy space seats. Even though what sort of animal he was and where he came from always remained a bit of a mystery, his fluffy persona was apparently designed as an effort to differentiate the advertising campaign by not using a human being. As Rob Fyfe CEO of Air New Zealand explained in his …

What a year it has been for the airline industry when it comes to marketing. With healthier profits this year, we’ve seen many airlines push the envelop when it comes to marketing and social media innovation. So to sum up the year, we’re sharing the top 11 marketing innovations by airlines in 2011.

While going through these, you’ll also realize that most of those that made the list aren’t one-off campaigns, but mature strategies made up of tactics that drive very specific business goals. So gone are the days of fluffy, one-off social-media campaigns with questionable ROI. Hope these inspire you for 2012!

Estonian Air social loyalty program: AirScore, the airline’s groundbreaking, yet simple, loyalty program rewards travelers for online advocacy. You earn virtual points on Facebook for sharing a trip report or booking through the airline’s Facebook app. And these can be redeemed for simple privileges like fast-security lane access. In 10 days, the program generated over a million impressions on Facebook, more than the number of passengers carried by the airline in a year! It’s now won three global awards in three months. Read more… (airlinetrends.com)
SpiceJet Bombardier …

Yes, I said it: branding!

The benefits of crowdsourcing, and its effectiveness for problem solving, are well-known. The power of the social web is being harnessed by airlines more than ever (in fact, a cargo-carrier has recently got into the game as well). Crowdsourcing initiatives are now being used not  just to engage customers but also to find ways to improve their product and services, as well as at the same time building their brands. Hence, “crowdbranding”.

With today’s Top 10 case-pack we would like to highlight some of the best examples of airline crowdsourcing. At the same time, we also invite our readers to have a look beyond the surface and into the deeper strategic goals that drive each of these strategies. In some cases it will be clear that the end game was indeed solving a problem or finding an innovative way of addressing existing issues, but in others it will also be clear that the stated goal of the crowdsourcing campaign wasn’t the only goal.

Most of the airline examples included in this Top 10 used crowdsourcing to solve problems related to visible parts of their product such as in-flight meals or routes, and did so in …

Yes, you read that correctly. I did not write Web 2.0. Of course, that’s not because it’s not relevant – it’s terribly relevant – but because this newer term encompasses Web 2.0 and then some. So what exactly do I mean by Mobile 2.0 and why is it important? Cutting to the chase, here are some things we all know: first, ordinary feature phones are dying a fast death and smartphone shipments are rising as iOS and Android become increasingly popular with others, such as Windows Phone 7, hot in pursuit. Second, people are increasingly using their phones to do tasks they earlier used their laptops or desktops for: hotel search, ticket bookings, banking, emails, etc. Third, smartphones are creating an all new category of the always connected traveler – a web-savvy, social-networking geek who isn’t afraid to declare to his virtual networks what he’s thinking or doing.
The future is mobile
Given the rapidly changing interactional/behavioural habits of the traveler, it has become important for airlines to target them where they can be found. Close your eyes and think for a moment about what the word mobile phone means to you: I’m quite certain that most of the readers here …

What a fabulous journey it has been! To say that the 2nd SimpliFlying Annual Awards for Excellence in Social Media were a success, would perhaps be an understatement. Right from sowing the seeds online to reaping the rewards offline in Amsterdam on October 10, this year’s SimpliFlying Awards journey has been exhilarating and extremely rewarding.

Behind the Scenes
In more than a year of being with SimpliFlying in various capacities, helping get the Awards machine up and running has been by far the grandest enterprise I’ve been involved with. The first and most immediate challenge that faced us was to ensure that we received a fairy representative roster of nominations. In this we succeeded most handsomely, getting almost 70 nominations over 4 categories.

Then came the greater challenge: actually getting votes for the top nominees. In this endeavour, we pursued three diverse methods: first, we constantly promoted #SMAwards on the SimpliFlying Twitter channel that has close to 8,000 followers. By means of numerous retweets and mentions on Twitter, we reached a wide audience. Second, we used our SlideShare channel to promote the top nominees in each category by producing 4 …

A couple of days ago we released an exclusive infographic on how The Future of Loyalty Programs will be powered by Social Media. Given the excellent response it has received on Twitter as well as the blogosphere, we thought we’d go ahead and offer some more detailed insights into the current loyalty game and how social platforms are becoming increasingly important to it. Before we move on to the presentation, I’d like to share a few thoughts on the state of social media with respect to loyalty programs and even vice-versa.

Navigating an increasingly connected world
The internet has ensured that the times we live in are constantly changing. Everything about the world, even the beacons we hold sacred on the internet are restless, dynamic, shape-shifting. At the heart of all this change lies the virtual socialization of human society: more than ever before we are interacting with each other and with businesses online. And the most important part of this change is the growth in two-way conversations instead of one-way advertisements; the instant and spontaneous back and forth between a company and its customers rather than force-feeding pre-determined messages; most of all, the ability of social networks to amplify …

Did you know that over 80% of members of an airline loyalty program never earn enough miles to redeem a flight? And most of the other 20% fly so much that the last thing they want to do is to step on another plane! Do you see why some loyalty program managers are worried?

For airlines, the future of frequent flyer programs programs is now a pressing question, given the growth of social technologies. As such, many airlines are now rushing to find ways of driving social loyalty. Some of these have been covered in our slide-deck on the Top 10 Social Loyalty Initiatives by Airlines.

To dig deeper, we partnered with Cranfield University in the UK to conduct a study on how frequent travelers (who travel at least five times a year) use social media. And here are some highlights of what we found:

There are more airlines on Twitter than there are airlines with frequent flyer programs (191 vs 179)
Almost 90% of frequent flyers use Facebook regularly, and over 65% “Like” at least one airline on Facebook
To frequent fliers cheapest fare is the least significant loyalty factor among customer service, earning loyalty points and onboard experience
72% of frequent …

If you still need proof of whether social media matters or not, you only have to look at the turnout for this year’s votes for the 2nd SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence. By the time voting closed after 2 weeks of stiff competition, more than 30,000 votes had been submitted from over 4500 cities. And this was after having shortlisted the Top Nominees from close to 60 nominations. The finalists for each category have been announced and they’ll face off in Amsterdam on October 10.

The innovations begin

When airlines initially began their adventure on the socialscape, it was all about about feeling their way about on the social platforms of their choice. The primary focus at the outset was first, discovering how to drive traffic and building a fan-base, followed by the more important aim of utilizing the platform for customer engagement and provide them a real-time medium of information-dissemination and customer service. Slowly, however, they realized that social platforms could also aid them in driving revenue. Flash sales, deals and contests became popular to attract more customers. However, the real innovations were still some time away.

A changing landscape

That time, it seems, has …