Is Alaska Airlines’ Social Media Execution heading South of Expected?

Alaska Airlines is known for being nimble when it comes to customer service, and well loved, because it is smaller than most US airlines. When they got started with social media, there were one of the first to do things right, and had a great vision too, as I highlighted in my interviews and articles last year. However, it seems that things have stagnated. It may not be the case, but that’s what it seems like from the outside.

A reader passionately shared his ideas with me, which culminated in this guest post. Thomas Evans is a Marketing and Social Media professional in Seattle, Washington; and a loyal Alaska Airlines fan. And here’s what he feels about Alaska Airlines’ social media execution.
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Meeting the basics…

Currently, if I had to describe Alaska’s use of social media I would describe it simply as, decent. They have an online presence, but they are not providing a ‘north of expected’ experience for the consumers.  Sure, they have a Facebook page (in my opinion, one that is need of a major makeover). And yes, they have a Twitter account that is managed and updated regularly. But they could be doing so much more.  As a loyal Alaska Airlines flyer and fan, I am curious as to why a company who focuses, emphasizes and does such an exceptional job with their customer service does not put forth a greater effort to build and keep relationships with their customers online.

Social media a competitive differentiation?

If you want to make yourself stand out from competitors you have to be willing to go the extra mile. On Twitter, don’t just sit and wait for someone to reply to a previous Tweet or ask you a question. Go out and look for individuals to interact with. Just the other night I took a look at Alaska Airlines’ Twitter page. It was 11 pm and there were zero responses or signs of interactions with customers all day. I then searched for mentions of the airline. One individual complained about damaged bags and said “Sorry Alaska, you just lost a customer.” As I’m writing this, more than 48 hours later, this person still hadn’t been responded to publicly. Perhaps this individual was dealt with through a DM, but still, the overall lack of interaction is confusing.

Mentioning new flight deals once a day and responding to customer questions that other followers honestly don’t care about is not going to make you stand out.

• Engage in conversations, ask questions that will provide free and valuable feedback and data, point followers to interesting or useful posts even if they are not Alaska Air related, engage in casual fun chit chat.
• Make it easy and interesting for customers to interact and feel like they have a relationship with the airlines.

Building a sustainable strategy

It could be that a single individual or small team handling the social media efforts simply do not have enough time to dedicate solely to Twitter and Facebook because they have so much else on their plates. If this is the case, more people need to be hired. Much of an organization’s social media efforts are simply extensions of their customer service team. Would you want one individual in charge of answering all of your company’s phone calls and emails from customers? I know I wouldn’t.

Finally, we have all heard by now that Alaska Airlines will soon be providing Wifi on all of their flights.  While this is a big deal for obvious reasons, it also could provide huge opportunities for the airline to catch up to its competitors in the social media game.  This previous Simpliflying post provides simple, yet great ideas of how an airline can obtain valuable information, form relationships and improve customer experience thousands of feet in the air. Among other things, it would be wise for Alaska to start planning ahead.

What do you think about Alaska Airlines’ efforts? How do you think they can do things better? Let’s hear it in the comments, and over on Twitter (@simpliflying)