Social Media Metrics for Airports – Part 1

Before applying Social Media Marketing metrics and analytics to the  streams of social messaging types coming in and going out of airports, it is important to decide on the Top Level Strategic Objectives these metrics will support. In terms of ROI, Social Media can be mapped to business and marketing values as in classical methods – that is, measuring awareness, reach and frequency of messaging. Although these metrics are usually quantifiable, Social Media brings an exciting and new exponential upside to the mix.

We attempt to lay out in a series of short Blogs, the steps required to develop a meaningful, measureable program for implementing Social Media Marketing programs in airports complete with sample metrics and methods as a guide to gauge success.

Our series will bring into play marketing best practices and tools where applicable, in support of both airport Customer Services and airport Retail. We will also share data and concepts that are working with the airlines as well.

 

Mapping Airport Goals to Social Media Models

If we make the assumption that there are only 3 real measurable goals in airports in terms of REAL ROI, we can get past the “promised land” approach of Social Media.
1)    Increase Revenue (s) – increasing retail spend
2)    Lower Operational costs (airport ops or perhaps retail cost of marketing and sales)
3)    Improving Customer Satisfaction levels

Again if we make the assumption that all airports have these as core goals, we should then determine some benchmarks for a starting point. We’re offering brand monitoring analysis from  an industry perspective, which will give us data from several airports (geographic and our Top 10 lists from the Forbes.com articles), passenger profiles (types and demographics, where available) and also through the analysis, find specific references for continued usages (saturation) of social media tools and responses.

As our project runs over in time, we’ll will be able to capture data from over 500 airports, determine sentiment analysis, top brand mentions (airport references) and find out what the top conversations are, who is saying it and hopefully why. This data when modeled against all airports, gives us total aggregated industry trends. We can then extend our metrics methodology to actually creating a directional shift in messaging that will be the basis for future opportunity as the project unfolds.

This is where the magic happens, but without participation, airports will be missing the opportunity to engage, listen and act on these trends.

The opportunity to gather data can’t be overshadowed by the needs to find meaningful insights- those that map to objectives specific to airports.

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