First, a bit of history. Social seating goes back a long time at SimpliFlying. We were actually the first to point out that choosing potential seating partners via an intelligent social seating system in an airplane would ultimately go mainstream – that was a product powered by our good friends at Satisfly. This was way back in 2009 – almost three years ago! Then in 2010, we discussed incorporating social media in the flying experience – and showcased Twitter seating charts.

Then, last year, there were significant indications of things to come with Malaysia Airlines allowing customers to sit next to their Facebook friends. However, a couple of months ago KLM announced that they would launch the first “truly” social seating system for airlines matching customer’s social profiles with those having similar profiles or interests.

So far, given the lack of details about how the system would exactly work, the announcement was both welcomed as well as met with trepidation by the online community. Some claimed they’d love to try this new system, saying that it would spare them long hours of boredom on their flights, to  the outraged reactions of people who thought it would be an unjustifiable invasion of privacy and could lead to in-flight harassment to unwilling seat-mates.

Today’s the real deal!  At KLM`s headquarters in Amsterdam, the world will witness the announcement of something different, radically innovative but also, controversial: allowing passengers to choose seat mates based on information about their shared interest taken from their Facebook profiles!

Let’s move on now to what’s really happening at Amsterdam.

Click here to view the embedded video.

KLM’s Meet and Seat – Live!

Follow the live-blog below to get blow-by-blow updates as the new product is unveiled (the blog will be updated as soon as the press conference starts)

Photo credit: @polledemaagt

[1.30pm] Social Seating will be launched on flights between Amsterdam and San Francisco, Sao Paolo and New York City.

[1.40 pm] We’ve learnt that passengers will be able to share information from their Facebook or LinkedIn account and will be to see who else is traveling on a particular flight and has shared relevant data. Everyone can decide which data they want to link with their flight. This information can be used by passengers to choose a seat-mate.

[1.45 pm] KLM President & CEO Erik Varwijk said that KLM has always strived to be cutting edge in social media and it’s latest revolutionary initiative will be fun and useful for people with similar interests to connect.

[1.50 pm] Meet & Seat will be can be reserved 90 days to 48 hours before departure on all intercontinental KLM flights via ‘Manage My Booking’.

[2.00 pm] We’ve managed to secure the very first look of what Meet and Seat will be like.

[2.15 pm] Essentially, after booking your KLM flight, choose what Facebook or LinkedIn profile details you want to share. Subsequently, view the profile details of fellow-passengers to find like-minded people or business partners. After evaluating such details you can choose to sit beside a person whose profile you find interesting. Of course, once you’re tuned into the social seating game, the potential is limitless as you could later choose to have a coffee at the airport or even share a taxi with the person you sit next to.

• 5 Ways to Incorporate Social Media Into the Flying Experience, and leverage on your “followers”
• How an intelligent seating system can bring ancillary revenues, and is great for the airline brand
• Malaysia Airlines takes booking and check-in to Facebook. And now, you can sit next to your friend too!
• Vote for the SimpliFlying Hero of February 2011 – Finnair vs Delta Air Lines vs Malaysia Airlines
• Three ways the Cathay Pacific brand can come alive by infusing social media into the People site

In marketing, we often talk about the value of brand associations, of being at the top of the mind of consumers and having the brand instantly connect with a feeling, memory etc. However, putting all this into practice is probably one of the hardest things in the industry. According to researchers, there can only be 3 brands in of a consumer per category… don’t believe me?

A short brand-recognition exercise

Let’s do a little exercise: name 3 brands of Cola.

Now let me guess: The first one that you thought of was: Coca Cola? And maybe the color red? The second one was: Pepsi, perhaps? And the third one?  Maybe you struggled a bit with this one, but probably it was the top selling “white label” brand from your local supermarket

Let’s do one more:

Think of good times (or more specifically, the recent holiday season) and name a brand of soft drinks.

I guess that you probably thought of something similar to the image below:

One last test:

Can you think of the holiday season and an airline/airport in the same breath?

Having troubles? Well it’s understandable since no airline brand has managed to “own” this idea yet, at least not in the minds of the general public. However some have managed to execute some “wow” campaigns aimed at associating their brands with positive emotions such as the ones associated with the holidays and Christmas seasons. As a result, they have ended up delighting customers, driving brand engagement and building loyalty.

In the spirit of the holiday season just gone by, with this Top 10, we have shown how some airlines and airports have spread smiles and goodwill amongst their customers.

• Top 10 Route Launches: How Airlines and Airports engage customers in new destinations through social media
• Toronto Pearson Airport sings you a Christmas carol if someone tweets you’re flying out – and they sang one for me
• Five airlines (and an airport) that surprised passengers this Christmas with Wow campaigns
• Oman Air’s re-branding effort – worth it?
• Vueling Business Class drives awareness creatively: The cloud that fell from the sky

We promised we’d make the New Year exciting for you. And here we are – delivering on the promise we made! After creating quite a buzz with our revamped SimpliFlying Heroes initiative that saw almost 3000 votes pour in over just a week, we’re back with something even more exciting. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show that we’re bringing you today (and every fortnight hereon)!

Today, we’re launching SimpliFlying Podcasts – a brand new product that should excite our readers, most of whom are travel marketers. Starting this Wednesday, SimpliFlying will be releasing Marketing Strategy podcasts for airline and airport marketers on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month. Each podcast will have great insights on the latest in marketing from the best minds in aviation.

Why you should listen to the podcasts

Helmed by Shashank Nigam, the CEO of SimpliFlying, every fortnight we will interview a well-known face from the world of aviation (mostly CxO level). The in-depth interviews will be followed by a detailed discussion of insights into the latest in airline and airport marketing by SimpliFlying staff.

The podcasts will be available in two versions – a shorter, free version, lasting about 20 minutes, will have only the interview (you can listen to them below); the longer paid version, lasting about 40 minutes, will have the interview as well as the insights along with a detailed pdf transcript. Each premium podcast will be available at an introductory price of only $19 per podcast!

Listen to the first episode!

Our inaugural podcast has Tero Taskila, CEO of Estonian Air as the guest. Estonian Air, as you know, has been featured previously in our Top 10 case-packs for their innovative social media campaigns involving some rather interesting techniques to drive revenue such as reverse auctions on Facebook.

In recent months, the airline’s major claim to fame has been that it has developed the world’s first social media based loyalty program on Facebook. The app, Airscore, helps Estonian Air provide real-world rewards for virtual actions such as online brand advocacy. The social loyalty program has been path-breaking in terms of how it rewards loyalty and has won a number of awards as well. To learn more about Estonian Air and its great initiatives straight from their CEO, listen to the podcast below. You can subscribe to SimpliFlying Podcasts on iTunes as well!

Hope you enjoyed listening to our free podcast! Our premium version has 20 additional minutes of discussions on the hottest trends in the travel market with a focus on aviation. Burning issues such as social loyalty, measuring ROI on social media, opportunities for location-based services etc are discussed in detail by Shashank and Marco Serusi, our Community Engagement executive based out of Valencia, Spain. What’s more, if you’re not patient enough to listen, you’ll have access to the complete transcript of the 40-minute podcast as well. We’re offering all this, as we mentioned earlier, at a great introductory price of only $19!

This is just the beginning. Watch out over the next few weeks for a couple more exciting new products from SimpliFlying!

Full disclosure: SimpliFlying helped Estonian Air build their social loyalty program.

[Flash player for those having difficulty with the HTML5 player above.]

• Can AirAsiaX make the low-cost long-haul model work with focus on Asia-Pacific? Interview with CEO Azran Osman-Rani
• Size doesn’t matter. Interview with Estonian Air CEO Tero Taskila reveals a grand vision for the future
• SimpliFlying is “aviation website of the week” (and more accolades)
• SimpliFlying, in the news…and more!
• High Flying Tweets: 11 of the best airline or aviation bloggers / journalists to follow on Twitter

Over the last year, SimpliFlying went pretty big with infographics. Big both in terms of the issues we tackled and the buzz we generated. We scored especially huge hits with our social future of loyalty and resources dedicated to social media infographics, apart from the regular Monthly Airlines on Twitter Report published in partnership with Eezeerdatalab.

And now, we’re kicking off the New Year with a bang as we present a new infographic, in partnership with our friends at Eyefortravel, on a burning issue that airlines and travel marketers in general will be looking to tackle over the next twelve months. Two questions in particular are addressed in this infographic:

1. In what direction does the industry see social media evolving?
2. What business goals travelers are driving and if they’re calculating ROI

While we do seem to have a consensus on the answer to the first question – the future is certainly mobile – uncertainty remains about how to measure ROI on social media. (We’ve tackled this briefly in a previous infographic as well). The uncertainty looms large primarily because while there are divergent ways in which people do measure ROI, there is also a section that questions the need to measure ROI when the benefits are so obvious.

Here are some interesting findings we’d like to highlight:

1. Location-based services such as Foursquare will be huge this year. Almost half of all the airlines surveyed wish to increase their presence in location-based social networks in 2012 (they’re going to get you while you travel!)
2. Over 70% of travel marketers are using social media to “build their brands” – a typically “fluffy” or qualitative goal which often can’t be measured in concrete terms
3. More marketers (56% vs 45%) are confident of having unlocked useful data to measure ROI on their mobile strategies vs general social media strategies.
4. Almost 60% of marketers are either sure of the conversions to booking rate via Facebook or have a fair idea, which is rather impressive.

Note: All findings are sourced from Eyefortravel’s “Social Media and Mobile Strategies for the Travel Industry 2011″ report. The full report can downloaded here. You can use the discount code: SIMP100 to save $100!

Add This Infographic to Your Blog/Website
<a href=”http://simpliflying.com/wp-content/uploads/ROIandMobileInfographic_SimpliFlying.jpg”></p> <p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5679" title="ROIandMobileInfographic_SimpliFlying" src="http://simpliflying.com/wp-content/uploads/ROIandMobileInfographic_SimpliFlying.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="3828"></a> Via <a href=”http://SimpliFlying.com” _mce_href=”http://SimpliFlying.com”>SimpliFlying – Helping airlines and airports engage travelers profitably | </a> Grab <a href=”http://simpliflying.com/2012/infographic-how-travel-marketers-calculate-roi-on-social-media-and-why-the-future-is-mobile/” _mce_href=”http://simpliflying.com/2012/infographic-how-travel-marketers-calculate-roi-on-social-media-and-why-the-future-is-mobile/”>the code to embed this infographic</a> on your site.

(Download a larger version here)

Do you think this infographic makes perfect (or less than perfect) sense? What were your main takeaways from the stats presented here? Let us know what you think of this infographic in the comments below or tweet us @simpliflying. You can find more infographics here.

• [Infographic] How mobile is re-shaping travel distribution (gasp!)
• The Always Connected Traveler – how mobile will transform the future of travel [Infographic]
• [Infographic] How travel brands are using social media to achieve ROI
• The SimpliFlying Social Media Cheatsheet for Airline Marketers
• [Infographic] How Airlines across the world are dedicating resources to Social Media

Some food for thought…

In my MasterClasses, I often ask, “How long is your brand engagement with a can of Coke? How about with Starbucks?” The answer is about 5 mins for Coke and about 90 mins for Starbucks.

Now, if I were to ask you how long is your brand engagement with an airport? How about an airline? The answer can range from at least two hours to over 24hrs! So why is it that our time spent in an airport (especially after security) is the most boring? How is it that airlines have 24 hrs with their customers captive, and yet service recovery is an issue if something goes wrong? It’s because the old rules of branding that would apply to Coke and Starbucks don’t necessarily apply to airlines and airports!

When we released our white paper on airline branding and introduced the 6X model, the premise was that branding for airlines and airports is different due to the length of brand engagement. What would Coke pay to have a brand engagement of two hours? How much more profit do you think Starbucks would make if the customer sat there for 24 hours, rather than in a plane?

Think about it!

Now, think about what you can do to leverage the captive audience at your airport, or in your airplane. There are already good examples. Changi Airport has a butterfly garden and a huge slide! KLM surprises people while they’re waiting. Cebu Pacific has flight attendants that dance and perform magic tricks on-board.

So, what can you do differently in 2012 to drive more revenue from the captive customer? How can you engage them better? How can you make them happier?

Food for thought…

P.S: Some interesting thoughts on this have recently been shared by Ogilvy’s Rohit Bhargava and Oracle’s Adarsh Pete. Sumit Roy wrote a highly acclaimed guest post here last year as well.

• What lessons can airlines learn from Starbucks about branding?
• Asiana Airlines perks up the brand by adding summer fun in the air
• Top 10 Airports on Social Media – case studies of the airports best at driving engagement
• Why the in-flight wi-fi business model needs a re-think (Hint: airlines can learn from airports)
• Best Airports in Social Media: Top 5 Airports nominated for the SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence 2011

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 very “socially active” ways, using their social media pages and often creating dedicated websites where participants could interact.

Looking deeper into the reasons that drove these airlines to choose crowdsourcing, we found that the most common goals were:

1. Solving a particular problem
2. Reducing costs
3. Associating their brands with a specific concept (for example: quality or low prices)
4. Obtaining first hand-data from their community of users
5. Promoting a new feature/product/route

With this teaser, we’ll leave you to discover how some of the best airlines in the world harnessed the power of the web in the most tantalizing and innovative ways possible.

• Loyalty 2.0 | The Top 10 Social Loyalty Initiatives by Airlines
• The Top 10 Twitter Initiatives by Airlines
• The Top 10 Viral Videos by Airlines (plus bonus videos)
• Top 10 Travel Distribution Initiatives by Airlines: Reinventing the booking cycle to drive revenue (from #eftamerica)
• Mobile 2.0 – The Top 10 Mobile Apps by Airlines

It was an amazing day today, at the Social India Conference, in Bangalore, where my  presentation generated much appreciation and buzz. It was geared towards lessons learnt from the airline world, which can be applied to Indian context, as well as social organizations like Akshaya Patra, a beneficiary of the conference.

Sharing here my presentation (Prezi) and some of the tweets from the conference.

 

@simpliflying loved your presentation, especially the enthusiasm, energy and passion you have for your subject #socialindia

November 12, 2011 2:40 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@happiestkhan

Shahnawaz Khan

Indeed ;-) RT @Anomillie: Airline gyaan by @Simpliflying #socialindia rocks

November 12, 2011 2:54 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@LHInsights

Prasant Naidu

There was a problem with the blakbirdpie shortcode

Great presentation on social media for airlines by @simpliflying #socialindia

November 12, 2011 2:15 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@kapgup

Kapil Gupta

C2C education on social platforms more effective than B2C if done right #socialindia @simpliflying

November 12, 2011 2:15 am via UberSocial for BlackBerryReplyRetweetFavorite

@ACertainSen

sohini sengupta

Well done! RT “@simpliflying: We're pleased to announce that we'll be feeding 100 kids in India for a year w @akshayapatra #socialindia”

November 12, 2011 3:04 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@anish3075

Anish Kumarswamy

At #socialindia , most of them were talking about Shashank's presentation, its created with http://t.co/gywVTlZD @ http://t.co/BeU9amWP

November 12, 2011 10:22 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SeoHelpz

SeoHelpz

• Airports in social media – driving results and the road ahead. Presentation from ACI Airport Exchange, Abu Dhabi
• Announcement: February will be “Indian Aviation Month”
• [Slides] Social Media Strategy for Lufthansa – how a legacy airline built a strong customer engagement model
• The evolving traveler lifecycle, and how airlines are engaging customers through the journey #smtravel11
• Presentation on airlines and social media from FTMA & Freddies 2009, now available

Update: Winners announced!

And the results have been announced. Some usual suspects taking home the prizes while some smaller players claim an emphatic victory. Click on each category name to see the campaigns that were so keenly contested for these awards.

Best Airport in Social Media

Best Hotel in Social Media

Best Airline driving revenue via social media

Best Airline driving customer service and crisis management via social media

…And finally the big one!

Best Airline in Social Media

Moments from the Awards ceremony

The wait is over!

Live from Amsterdam, we’re bringing you the 2nd Annual SimpliFlying Awards for Excellence in social media – honoring the best airlines, airports and hotels in the world.

It has been a riveting contest. After 134 nominations and over 31,000 votes, we’re in Amsterdam for the final reckoning. The final shortlisted nominees are geared up to deliver their final pitches. Our three esteemed judges are ready with their marksheets and pencils. You can follow all the live action from the event via our streaming Twitter feed below.

If all the live tweeting action is too fast for you, check out the slide-deck below. Yes, these are the slides being presented live right NOW!

• 2nd Annual SimpliFlying Awards in Social Media Excellence – Nominations now open for airlines, airports and hotels
• The Best Airlines Driving Revenue Through Social Media – Introducing the Top 5 nominees for the 2nd SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence
• The Best Airlines, Airports and Hotels in social media – finalists for SimpliFlying Awards for Excellence in Social Media
• SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence 2011: The Journey, the Experience
• 2nd Annual SimpliFlying Awards in Social Media Excellence – Vote NOW for best airlines, airports, hotels

I had the opportunity to deliver the opening keynote at this year’s Navitaire Customer Summit, which is an annual gathering of the world’s leading budget airlines commercial and IT executives. And I spoke about how airlines and airports can drive results and ROI from social media – sharing tons of examples of airlines from around the world actually doing that. I also delivered a MasterClass at the Summit.

And as with all my presentations, I’m posting the presentation here for your viewing pleasure. Feedback welcome, and if you’d like to engage us to help you with your social media strategy or speak at your event – just drop us a note.

• Driving social media ROI for airlines, airports and travel businesses – Keynote presentation from #SMtravel11
• Airports in social media – driving results and the road ahead. Presentation from ACI Airport Exchange, Abu Dhabi
• Presentation – How airlines can segment customers and target niche markets through social media
• Airlines 2.0: Using technology for branding through the recession – webinar slides
• LCC 2.0: How low cost airlines can use social media to engage their customers

SimpliFlying is back with the  Monthly Twitter Report for airlines (in partnership with Eezeer) for August 2011 in continuation with our coverage and analysis of the dynamic social media landscape for airlines.

After close to 6 months of reporting monthly on how airlines are using Twitter, we can safely say that apart from Facebook, Twitter is the social media platform of choice for most airlines. The number of tweets sent and received has been rising in general for months in a row. Airlines have also become more forthcoming as well as responsive.

This month, while the usual suspects (Delta and JetBlue) are once again on the list of top engagers, Cebu Pacific absolutely storms into the list. Not only is it placed second on the list of airlines receiving the most number of public tweets, it also scores the highest in the Global Satisfaction Score with a score of 106.7. (For more details, see the infographic.)

A number of facts are immediately clear from this report:

1. As we’ve mentioned, Cebu Pacific is second on the list of airlines receiving the most number of public tweets with more than 11,000 to its name. However, Delta Air Lines is once again literally burning the competition. To put things in perspective, it received almost 28,000 tweets. That is 2.5x of the no. 2 airline and 3.5x of the third on the list: JetBlue.
2. Even though airlines have been, in general, using Twitter more than before there was a slightly surprising drop in the number of public tweets this month. Compared to March 2011, the number of tweets in August were up by 37% compared to 51% for July. All the more surprising since we’ve had a rather busy month on the internet (see below). (This does not change the fact, however, that Twitter is being used more actively in general.)
3. Delta Air Lines still sends and receives the most number of tweets, which has been the trend since the first report. I’m tempted to add in a *yawn* here. Because really, they’ve been quite brilliant in handling social media and have literally pioneered the new media active customer engagement model!
4. Just over 40% of all airlines accounts on Twitter tweet actively. In effect, in August 2011, 105 airlines were not tweeting actively even though they have Twitter accounts.
5. In the UK, British Airways (somewhat expectedly) is the most followed airline, with over 260,000 people following the airline’s tweets.
6. Hurricane Irene and the earthquake on the East Coast let loose a flurry of conversations on Twitter, especially among airlines. More than 5000 tweets about Hurricane Irene were published over 4 days. Interestingly, 21.6% of those tweets involved a mention of Delta Air Lines! To learn more about how airlines responded to the earthquake and hurricane, see our special case-pack here.

For more insights, check out the infographic and let us know what you thought about it. Is there something you agree with? Disagree? Are there any figures that you’d like to see in next month’s infographic? Comment or tweet us @simpliflying and let us know. You can also view our previous Monthly Twitter Reports for July here, June here and May here. More airline infographics can be viewed here.

The airlines on Twitter report is produced by eezeerdatalab in association with SimpliFlying.

• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for July 2011 reveals that more airlines have Twitter accounts than loyalty programs
• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for November 2011: increasing engagement but 30 airlines produce over 80% of tweets
• Airlines on Twitter in June 2011: Delta Airlines is the breakaway “listening and talking champion”
• Eezeer and SimpliFlying launch airline monthly twitter report – Delta leads Twitter use, and customer service is in!
• [Infographic] Airlines on Twitter – April 2011 data reveals the need to focus on Customer Service