Editor’s Note: After an excellent response to the previous post on How KLM is winning on social media in Europe, here’s another guest post by Peter Claridge of Unmetric, an exclusive aviation partner of SimpliFlying. Unmetric is a social media benchmarking company that helps brands analyse how well they’re doing on social media by including in-depth insights into numerous metrics as well as information on what kind of content “works” and how competitors are faring.

Airlines are in a unique and somewhat enviable sector when it comes to social media. They all fly to exotic destinations, are able to sponsor the biggest events, use amazing machinery, have huge amounts of glamour and produce reams of interesting facts. The sector is literally bursting with potential for engaging Facebook posts.

According to Unmetric’s data (based on secret sauce technology and kept as confidential as Coca Cola’s recipe), the average engagement score for the airlines sector is 33. Interestingly, European airlines tend to be well ahead of their American competitors when it comes to engaging their customers. However, if there is one unifying factor for all the airlines, it is that above everything else, photo posts are the driving force behind getting …

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 …

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 …

Would you believe it? Only a few days ago, while releasing the case-pack for the Best Airlines Driving Customer Service and Crisis Management we had reported that the total votes for the 2nd SimpliFlying Awards for Excellence in Social Media had crossed 12,000 in just about a week! We also mentioned how votes had been received from more than 2,500 cities across the world. But today, we have updated figures for you, and we request you to hold your breath!
With about a day still to go for voting (and trust us, a lot of votes come in on the last day), the total number of votes has already crossed 30,000. Moreover, votes have come in from 4500+ cities across the world. How incredibly awesome is that?
Yes, while you gather words and your breath to answer that, this would be a good time to remind you that only a day is left for voting so you can still vote for your favorite airline if you haven’t done so. Do vote if you care about the airline you love! Meanwhile, you can check out the latest result for the current category below. All voting closes September 15….

The buzz is palpable! After a heady round of nominations (69 nominees in 10 days) we’re down to the fun bit – the real voting to shortlist the Top 3 who’ll be invited to Amsterdam on October 10th for the 2nd Annual SimpliFlying Awards for Excellence in Social Media. Amazingly, we received more than 5000 votes in the first 36 hours from more than 1400 cities across the world. Huge, huge numbers! And they’re growing astronomically each day!

To acquaint you better with the nominees in each category of the awards, we’ll be posting case-packs on our SlideShare channel for each of the 5 categories of awards detailing what makes each nominee so special and why they’re in the final list of nominees (the initial list had over 60 candidates!). The campaigns that clinched each airline its position of prestige will be illustrated in detail. We hope you enjoy going through them and revelling in the reflected brilliance of their innovativeness, cleverness and sheer chutzpah.

The first case-pack has 5 case-studies, each illumninating the campaigns of Top 5 nominees in the category “Best use of Social Media to drive Revenue”. As you’ll see, some, like Virgin America jumped …

One of the bigger marketing challenges airlines face is to fill up the seats as quickly as possible, when launching a new destination. Typically, it takes over six months to reach a level where a flight is profitable. And this is after receiving marketing help from tourism agencies and also from airports – press releases to billboards in the terminals.

But as as we have long suspected, the traditional press release is rather dead and buried. Granted, it’s not dead in the truest sense of the word; however, it is undeniable that social technologies have morphed press-releases beyond recognition. Gone are the boring, wordy releases that used to accompany every major announcement in the industry. Welcome to the new age of social engagement!

Social media for route launches
Airlines these days have begun smartly leveraging the power of social media while making new product and route announcements. Forget the one-page release announcing the nature and benefits of the new route. These days, there are dedicated campaigns being run by airlines (as well as airports) to draw attention to their new routes and planes.

Witness the wide-ranging strategies adopted …

SimpliFlying Heroes is now just over one year old, in which time we have honored the nine of the world’s best individuals engaging airline customers. And on completing this first anniversary, we asked for some feedback from the industry folks and while they said they were very inspired by the stories shared, the asked if there could be public voting for Heroes, instead of just nomination. And we thought that’s a great idea!

Hence, from July 2011 onwards, you will be able to vote for the SimpliFlying Hero each month, from three nominees we put together (or you suggest). Additionally, we have decided that all SimpliFlying Heroes deserve a six month free membership to SimpliFlying Tribes, as opposed to the current one month. And that’s in addition to all the fame and the coveted certificate.

So without much further ado, please allow me to reveal the SimpliFlying Heroes nominees for July 2011 (…drumroll…): Jill Fletcher from Virgin America, Alison Russo from Lufthansa USA and Ali Bullock from Cathay Pacific.

Here’s a brief description of each of the nominee’s work at their respective airlines.
Jill Fletcher, Virgin America
Virgin America has been on the cutting edge of experimenting with social media …

***This is an article written and published from scratch at 35,000 ft, in-flight on Virgin America flight 342 from San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale. Made possible by Gogo Wifi. A first on SimpliFlying**

In a recent conversation with a South American airline executive, we were talking about the state of commercial airlines in the US. And the consensus we reached was that the travel experience  within the US is just bearable at best, often frustrating and most noteworthy innovations are actually taking place in other regions around the world.

Then I took my first Virgin America flight. And I stand corrected – innovation is indeed taking place in the US too. And in addition to just flying their own airlines regularly, I’d highly encourage every senior airline executive in the world to come give Virgin America a shot on their next trip to the US. And here’s why.
Red, White and Purple – ah..so..Virgin
Virgin America probably has the best in-flight product on a narrowbody aircraft (trust me…I’ve flown a lot of them). And the brand personality truly stands out!

The ambience: The number of innovations inside the cabin are astounding. The first thing that strikes you is the cabin ambience – purple …

Update: airBaltic has kindly agreed to fly in the winners of this contest to London for FREE, from anywhere on their network! All you have to do is fulfill the conditions below, and follow airBaltic on Twitter.

Social media is increasingly becoming a tool of strategic competitive advantage for airlines. Delta Airlines now sells tickets on Facebook. Virgin America uses Twitter to launch new routes and save on marketing. And airBaltic [Disclosure: SimpliFlying Client] probably has a bigger presence online than in the real world. So how can other airlines learn from the likes of these successful airlines to build their own social media strategies? We have the answer.
Airline Business and Flight Global, in association with SimpliFlying, are delighted to be launching the first social media conference dedicated to aviation and all things airline related. The conference will take place on 1st October 2010 in Central London and you can now Register here. The conference will also be featuring the 1st ever SimpliFlying-Airline Business Awards for Excellence in Social Media – and you can start by nominating your airline for the SimpliFlying Heroes …

Virgin America created a splash today, by launching its first international destination, Toronto, on Twitter! They did not spend a cent on traditional advertising for this launch, and I personally think this is one of the smarter uses of social media I’ve seen by an airline in recent times.

The sweetener is that the first 500 people to book tickets using their Twitter ID would be able to redeem a 50% discount (still valid as of 2pm EDT, 20 Feb). If they’re not “following” the airline on Twitter, they will auto-follow. Even the official press release re-directed recipients to the Twitter URL.
“The first 500 Twitter followers who receive the airline’s expansion Tweet can score a 50 percent discount on flights to Toronto for travel June 23-November 17, 2010.*  Virgin America is the only airline based in Silicon Valley, and its inventive use of technology, social media and design has made it a favorite among tech-forward flyers.  For more: www.twitter.com/virginamerica”.
The press release was followed by a single Tweet. And that’s it. That’s a very simple route-launch for you.

What …