The past year has been an interesting and very successful one for Simpliflying with a number of new client acquisitions and tons of exciting free resources such as infographics and Top 10 case-packs posted regularly to the blog amongst other things. At the brink of the new year, we relive ten of the most popular articles on SimpliFlying in 2011:

10. Social seating: Have you read about the Malaysian Airline initiative that led the airline to create a much talked about Facebook booking engine that allowed people to sit with their friends on the airline’s flights?

9. Airports in social media: In the ninth place we have a Top 10 case-pack, an initiative helmed by our Senior Innovation Officer Shubhodeep Pal, on how airports have driven engagement trough social media.

8. Blockbuster social initiative: Next, in 8th place we find one, if not the, most successful social media campaigns of 2011, the AA Advantage “mystery miles” campaign that hit the headlines in February by achieving an 84 fold growth of its Facebook fans in 54 hours.

7. Airline Twitter initiatives: In the seventh place we find …

Our friends at Eezeer have analysed the Twitter habits of airlines as well as their fans/customers for the month of November and have produced the Monthly Twitter Report in continuation with their monthly coverage and analysis of the dynamic social media landscape for airlines.

At the close of the year, it’s worth pausing to consider how quickly the social landscape has evolved over the past year or so. Airlines have not only embraced Twitter but have also realised that there’s great value in using it to drive specific goals such as revenue, engagement and loyalty. Many innovative initiatives on Twitter have been captured in our Top 10 case-packs as well. It’s worth noting that as of November 2011 there were 198 airlines on Twitter with 90 actively tweeting. This, more than anything else, is a sign of changing times and even greater change to come.

A number of facts are immediately clear from this report:

Even though most airlines have jumped on to the Twitter bandwagon, the majority of the tweets are produced by a minority of airlines. 30 airlines provide more than 83% of tweets sent out by airlines.
Delta Air Lines is still the runaway champion, having been consistently been a …

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 …

After all the clamour regarding social media and how it’s the next big thing, we’re finally beginning to see some sense emanating from all the noise. Until now, there was an overwhelming feeling that what brands (among them airlines) really wanted out of social media was vague: there was no real consensus on what social media could actually do. It was mostly an unexplored quagmire that might yield riches or the swamp monsters. However, after an initial couple of years of experimentation, it’s quite evident that there are indeed riches to be gained from this quagmire. The bad news? There’s a monster protecting that treasure!
The Turning Tide
Undoubtedly, social media offers many benefits versus traditional forms of engagement. Some of them do bear repetition: the near-instant form of communication; two-way interaction compared to broadcast messaging; the ability to spread messages very fast across networks; the potential to identify and target “brand advocates” to drive brand awareness in cults (see Cult Relationship Management). We’ve strived to point out that a presence on social is media is not sufficient to do wonders for the brand: given that almost every airline is now on social media (our Monthly Airlines on Twitter report …

Do you remember the first time you ever flew? What do you remember about it? How big the cabin was on the inside? How small those cars looked on the ground below? The pain in your ears from the air pressure, or perhaps the gum you had to chew to make it go away?

Alice Liu, American Airlines’ Managing Director of Onboard Products, remembers something completely different from her first flight as a 13-year-old, and remembers it so fondly that it helped fuel her desire to work in the airline industry. Despite the nerves and excitement of moving with her family to a new and unfamiliar world across the Pacific, and the experience of seeing the tops of those fluffy, white clouds for the first time, what did Alice remember most about her 18-hour-trek from Taipei to Dallas via LAX? The food, of course.

That’s right. Good old, economy class airplane food, which she enjoyed so much that she asked for a second helping. If I can read your thoughts right now, you must either think that someone so passionate about airline food (!!!) is either flat-out nuts, or a match made in heaven for the job she does for American. Based …

As I passed through the US Immigration recently, when the official asked what I’m going to the US for, I replied, “I’m delivering a speech at an airline loyalty conference”. To which he casually exclaimed – “loyalty for airlines? I just go for the cheapest fare man!”. That gave me even more impetus to try and find the answer to the loyalty puzzle at the conference.

In late February, I spoke at the Loyalty11 conference, where a majority of the leading airline loyalty executives gather annually. This year, it was held in Dallas, and I managed to round up some key experts in airline loyalty business – from the stalwart AAdvantage program, to the soon-to-be started AirAsia’s loyalty program. And asked them just one question – what will have an impact on the future of airline loyalty. Here’s what they had to say:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_h8m_sq9EQ[/youtube]

What does the future of airline loyalty programs hold?
Looking through my notes from the conference, here are five indications towards the future (including some quotable quotes from the conference):

“Loyalty is no longer defined by the repeat customer” – Tom Klein – President, Sabre
There are three customer segments: the satisfied customer, the …

It may seem like an absurd question – why would an airline know a cryptic user id? But what if he’s a real person, on Twitter? Moreover, if he’s a top tier frequent flier? And tweeting about you all the time too! Then I’m sure the airline would want to know about him.

I just encountered such a person. His name is Tim Feyer, and just by looking at his last 15 tweets, I’m able to tell a log about him.

He’s an Executive Platinum on American Airlines’ AAdvantage
He’s flown 100,000 miles in the last two months, almost all on AA and over 3 Mn lifetime miles!
He almost always only travels First or Business Class
He always uses the Admirals Club
He’s engaging with other fliers on Twitter, and actively sharing his own experiences and helping them out

Now, I’m sure American Airlines has a ton of information about Tim in their AAdvantage database – but do they know how active he’s been on Twitter? Probably not. In fact, after speaking at the Loyalty11 Conference and the Social Media in Travel Conference in February/March, I don’t think most airlines are yet able to differentiate their frequent fliers amongst the hundreds of …

It’s a very simple proposition. “Like” a Facebook fanpage to get a random reward. In the case of American Airlines’ AAdvantage, the reward is to get between 100 to 100,000 miles just for liking their Facebook fanpage, in their Mystery Miles contest.

If the smart folks at AAdvantage had run this campaign a week earlier, they’d have surely made it to the Top 10 Facebook Contests by Airlines, which we put out last week. Because the results they’ve achieved in just three days seem phenomenal!
The most successful Facebook contest by an airline, till date?
The loyalty group at American Airlines, AAdvantage, set up the Facebook fanpage on Feb 1. And in the first couple of weeks, they managed to garner 2000+ fans, organically. Then they decided to launch the Mystery Miles campaign to drive membership, and the numbers hit through the roof.

In 24 hours, they went from 2,558 fans to 163,000 and had reached a staggering 210,000 fans at the time of this post, just 54 hours after the campaign was launched. Moreover, the interactions and engagements on the fanpage increased dramatically too, from just 41 likes for one of the initial posts, to over 1,200 likes for …

Thanks to David Parker Brown, I was alerted to a security situation on American Airlines flight 24 (AA24), bound to New York from San Francisco as someone had called in a threat to the jetliner. Thankfully, within a few hours all passengers had de-planed and gone through security checks and no one was hurt.
Crises Management 2.0 – Live on Twitter!
While the situation was unfolding, there were at least two passengers (@cmckella & @jaysears) on board the airplane who were tweeting away regular updates of the situation from their perspective, which included photos of the cabin and cops around the aircraft. Soon enough, major newspapers and news channels were quoting these two for the most current information about what’s happening on-board the aircraft.

Though, it wasn’t long till American Airlines’s Twitter account (@aairwaves) jumped into the middle of the arena and took on the queries head-on. It seemed like they had read our infographic on crises handling through social media (see below), because AA did a good job at it….

If you’re already up and running on Twitter, Facebook or other social media tools, a great way to augment your social media efforts is by tapping on one of the hottest trends around, location based services (“LBS”). Location based social networking is something VERY well suited for airlines. Just like “Tweets” was the buzzword of 2009, by the end of 2010, I expect “Mayor” to be the buzzword. And, these services are made to work well in the travel industry.
Popular Location Based Services
If you’re unfamiliar with LBS, here are a few that are popular, including a couple of travel specific ones:

Foursquare – Foursquare is a location based game/application, where users “check-in” at places around the city.  They get points for check-ins, adding new locations, and extra points for multiple check-ins in one day.  Check-ins can be automatically shared on Twitter and Facebook.  They can also become “Mayor” of a location if they have been there the most out of all Foursquare users.  Friends have access to see where you are, and where you’ve been, which can facilitate social gatherings that might have not otherwise happened.

Some companies are starting to use this application to …