Analysis of the Dassault Falcon Jets strategy on social media and recommendations in order to improve content and increase follower engagement. This report was made within the context of the Advanced Advertising Management Class at SKEMA Business School.

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DASSAULT FALCON JETS
ADVANCED ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT
"When
I
grow
up,
I
want
to
be
rich
and
have
my
own
private
jet
»
:)
Melissa Bourniquel
Marjorie Carpentier
Emeric Delalandre
Alexia Taisson

2. INTRODUCTION
Dassault Falcon is part of the Dassault Aviation Group, a French company founded in 1929 as
Société des Avions Marcel Bloch. The company became Avions Marcel Dassault in 1947 and
Dassault Aviation in 1990. The parent company is the group Dassault. Nowadays, Dassault is
known as a vertically integrated company that operates on all parts of the supply chain from design
to services within the area of combat aircraft and business jets. Among this business, Falcon by
itself has represented 63% of the total sale revenues.
The Falcon brand and warranty are ensured by a symbiosis between Dassault Falcon Jet and
Dassault Falcon Services. Both subsidiaries work together in order to provide the Falcon customers
a flawless and memorable experiences that meet the highest of their standards.
The private jet industry
After the economic recession period (2008-2011), the business aviation annual unit delivery growth
has reached a 1.2%. In this industry, there is a high correlation between corporate earnings and unit
deliveries so it really depends on the macroeconomic environment. In a world where the global
relationships are unstable, the forecasts for the coming years are uneasy to predict. Besides, the
industry is currently facing a new challenge which is the changes in behaviors of their customers.
There are less emotional purchases, with many losing their appetite for aircraft ownership
altogether.
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3. Considering theses realities, innovation in a customer-oriented way with strict financial discipline is
a key to grow the deliveries in the coming years. There is no better way to know and reach the
wealthy customers or companies than the social media. This is financially efficient as well, if it is
well done.
To know more how to be globally efficient on social media, it seems important to know what are the
drivers of the private jet industry and how to approach these platforms as real marketplaces.
According to the market forecast 2015-2024 by Bombardier Business Aircraft, the changes in the
international trade will be determinants for the future. Moreover, the new demand for aircrafts and
the new usages will drive the market. Dassault Falcon needs to know who is the audience on each
social media in order to communicate efficiently with the right content.
Finally, the business is supposed to grow in the coming years according to 10-year business aviation
market outlook 2015-2024 by Jetcraft. The key markets for business aviation are the U.S., Europe,
Latin America and China:
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The biggest change in the customers’ behaviors is about the
accessibility of the jets. It only used to be a full ownership but
now there are companies renting jets, others that share the
aircrafts and so on. The customers, who use private jets mostly
for professional purposes, are no longer the richest.

4. Why is social media important?
"Business retailers experience about 133% increase in revenues after marketing their business in the
m o b i l e m a r k e t t h a t p r o m o t e s s o c i a l m e d i a m a r k e t i n g v a l u e f o r t h e i r
business." (socialmediatoday.com)
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The medium and large jets, which are the two segments covered
by Bombardier will represent a $228B market. It is a huge
opportunity for Dassault Falcon.
During the last years, Dassault Falcon has lost market shares even
if it was the smallest of the big jet constructors. Embraer and
Cessna are also losing their leading positions while Gulfstream
and Bombardier are performing really good. It could be really
useful to be inspired by their social media strategy.

5. DASSAULT FALCON SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Dassault Falcon has different social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and
YouTube.
Dassault Falcon is using the duplication strategy. (Cf Appendix 1)
Each content is duplicated on each social media channel, in the exact same terms and descriptions.
Only the specificity of the hashtag is used on Twitter. Duplicating publications on social networks
allows the company to reach a maximum of people. Why? Most people do not spend an equal time
on each social network. For example, some people will be Facebook addicts while other people will
spend their time on Twitter. Duplicating enables to provide the same information to everybody. In
addition, social networks are the least costly way of advertising a brand. Therefore, duplicating
content is not an expensive advertising.
Yet, in addition to not being able to tailor the approach according to the specificities of each
audience, duplicating content may be risky. Indeed, followers could lose interest in the brand
because of content which is too much repetitive. What is more, by duplicating content, the company
depraves itself of a powerful way to leverage content and make the most out of each channel.
The real challenge for the company hence lays in its ability to create consistency across
channels while providing customized and diversified content. Right now, consistency among
social media channels is created by the enforcement of categories (Performance, Design,etc…) that
remain the same on all media.
The Sales, Marketing and Design departments are located in Teterboro, NJ (USA). The company
hires a director of Sales and Marketing. A quick search on LinkedIn has enabled to find out about
the social media strategy being handled by the manager of communications of Dassault Falcon Jets
who is located in Teterboro.
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
COMPELLING CONTENT
INSPIRATIONAL CONTENT
NO FORMAL LOOKING SOCIAL MEDIA BRAND
PAGES
INACTIVITY ON INSTAGRAM
FEW FOLLOWERS
LOW FOLLOWER ENGAGEMENT
OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
INSTAGRAM (leading social media platform)
CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT
PARTNERSHIPS WITH INFLUENTIAL SOCIAL
MEDIA PERSONALITIES
COMPETITORS ONLINE PRESENCE
NEGATIVE COMMENTS
FAST SPREAD OF INFORMATION INCLUDING
AND ESPECIALLY PROBLEMS
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6. LinkedIn
With over 360 million members worldwide, LinkedIn is one of the main social networks (alongside
Facebook, Twitter and Google+). For business to business, LinkedIn is a critical tool that can make
your prospecting faster, smoother and, ultimately, more profitable.
LinkedIn is crucial for the private jet industry because the aircrafts are mainly used by executives in
a business context. LinkedIn is the global reference for professional social networks, where the
individual targets and companies are located. It offers to encourage trial, facilitate purchase and
create loyalty in the same place if it is used in a customer-oriented way.
Currently, Dassault Falcon uses its LinkedIn page as a corporate vitrine, showcasing their business.
They currently have 22k followers while Gulfstream has 77k followers by clearly using their page
as a commercial driver. Bombardier, the market leader is managing its page by combining a
corporate and a commercial vision, orienting its marketing to its 207k followers/customers.
LinkedIn matters because:
• It is the right context. LinkedIn isn’t intended to replace face-to-face interactions in this
industry, instead, it optimizes the ability to know more about people & the market.
• It offers to leverage connections. People are in average 5x more likely to engage with a page
if the outreach is through a mutual connection. This industry is highly based on
recommendations.
• It allows to know the target’s behavior. Effective sales prospecting requires communicating
in a way that gets noticed. LinkedIn allows a personalized way to connect with
professionals.
The right way to inspire, become an evidence as a private jet constructor and generates sales on
LinkedIn is:
• Make the profile reflect the business. Dassault Falcon is innovative, creates detailed-
oriented aircrafts and aspire to be the leading company in the medium and large jets. They
have to post all of this values, not only the job opportunities. The LinkedIn page has to be a
knowledgeable resource.
• Engage with insights. Dassault Falcon is part of a technical industry so they can share
valuable information to initiate and maintain a relationship. It is really important in a
business-oriented industry because executives are looking for a cheaper, faster and better
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7. mean of transportation. With insights, presented with inspirational pictures or videos, the
posts should get shares, likes and comments. In that way, it spreads the word to the
connections of the people engaged and it is a huge opportunity to get feedback from the
target.
• Build relationships and trust with people. Nobody will buy a $40+ million jet without
having a serious trust on it. This trust can come from its personal opinion based on various
appreciation but also from a recommendation. For all of it, social media and reviews from
relations are useful. LinkedIn can create this also if Dassault Falcon interacts directly with
the prospects online.
Today, Dassault Falcon, which is an expert in building prestigious airplanes, is not an expert in
communicating online as the customer is commenting here on the left:
Conversely, Gulfstream on the right is an example on LinkedIn, by sharing inspiring, professional
and engaging content like the following one. Dassault Falcon should also implement a content
strategy optimized.
Facebook
Facebook is a social
network often used in
o r d e r t o p r o m o t e
businesses for several
reasons. First of all,
a c c o r d i n g t o
Statista.com, in 2015,
there were more than
1.59 billion monthly
active users.
Secondly, the possibility of content creation is tremendous. Whether be pictures, videos or articles,
any kind of content can be created on Facebook. In addition, it is a good way to obtain quantitative
and qualitative customers' feedback because they can like, comment or share these content.
Dassault Falcon often uses content aggregation in order to create valuable content for the social
media users. (Cf Appendix 2)
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8. It is interesting to have a look on the customer engagement to see if their marketing on social media
is working effectively. In order to calculate customer engagement, we look at the different posts and
how people respond to them: did they like it? Did they put a comment? Did they share it with their
friends? In order to have an overview of this customer engagement, we took into consideration the
likes, the comments, and the shares on the last ten posts created on Facebook:
• Customer engagement: 150 likes average on the last 10 posts on Facebook
• 7 comments average on the last 10 posts on Facebook
• 30 posts shared on average on the last 10 posts on Facebook
How well is Dassault Falcon doing on Facebook? Let’s make a ratio with the number of followers
on the page (5,912). The level of follower engagement hence becomes the sum of all interactions on
the latest 10 posts ( 150 + 7 + 30) divided by the number of followers. We obtain: 0,032 i.e. 3,2%.
This is not bad, given that a lot of brands hardly have a level of follower engagement higher than 5
per thousand. Yet, there is still room for improvement. In order to increase engagement our team
recommends:
Asking followers to share their opinions by introducing real explicit questions such as « What
do you think of our new interior design? »
Introducing real cooperation between the followers and the company and inciting followers to
engage and feel committed. « In which airport would you like to see our Falcon Jet land next
time? »
Keeping track of good social media habits that generate a lot of « likes » by benchmarking
competitors but also companies renowned for their great Facebook strategy.
Twitter
Twitter is a social media with a professional audience that really can help when it comes to
enhancing a brand image and giving it reliability and credibility. Twitter is the social media that
helps you demonstrate your expertise and build recognition in the industry you are targeting. In
order to do so, you need to draw attention to your page by using hashtags that are to be shared
among the twitter community and by creating discussion on topics that matter. It is really important
to keep in mind, that Twitter has an audience which is really distinct from other social media
channels' in terms of characteristics. Therefore, it is really important to adapt the type of content to
your audience. Right now, Dassault Falcon's Twitter account is a copy paste of their Facebook
account. Only the ergonomics are different. As you can see, all Twitter posts can be found on the
Facebook Page, and they use exactly the same descriptions: (Left: Facebook, Right: Twitter)
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9. Twitter content is divided into categories that are consistent with the other channels: Falcon
Performance, Falcon Services, Falcon Staff and Falcon Aesthetics. The problem here is that the
approach is too Falcon-centric. How to make followers engage with the content if you do not invite
them to do so? Falcon needs to introduce more proximity with the followers and to create affinities.
or the page will be about Falcon talking about Falcon things. Focusing on the customers’ feedback
and experiences would be a strategic element in order to increase interactions and human
dimension. You need to make the followers part of the process. Incite them to comment, post and
share content. Incite them to be active!
Falcon also needs to show how engaged is the company in the aviation industry and the
transportation industry in general. In order to do so, it is necessary to share news about the industry
or about topics that directly affect you and are important to the audience such as Global Warming.
What are your reactions to it? You need to show that you care. In order to attract followers, you
need to enter and create discussions about your industry. Use popular hashtags! Twitter is not only
about promoting your brand, it is about making the buzz and making you the “hot” trend.
Bombardier understands it all and they are incorporating the Super Bowl in their Tweets! (Cf
Appendix 3)
Last but not least, it is also important that the company increases the number of posts. A study by
Track Social shows that the ideal frequency of tweets in order to optimize follower engagement is 4
to 5 tweets a day. Right now, the frequency is one every other day, which is not enough to impact
followers’ attention. With the abundance of tweets on the feed, your tweets will not be notices if
they are to scarce. Increasing the number of tweets enables to increase the odds of impacting their
minds. Our recommendations for Twitter hence are:
Twitter cannot be another Facebook. Diversify content and create content meant specifically
for Twitter.
Increase Follower engagement by creating discussions and using topics that matter
Increase frequency of tweets to an average of 4 to 5 a day
YouTube
Compared with its main competitors, Gulfstream and Bombardier, Dassault Falcon is by far the
company with the least number of subscribers on YouTube. Yet, it is the one with the biggest
number of views on average. This statement shows that the number of subscribers does not directly
impact the number of views and therefore the recognition of the brand. Indeed, YouTube is not a
social medium to be exploited on its own. Rather, it should be used to enhance the social media
strategy in every other channels. YouTube helps creating and diffusing appealing content. It only is
a support and should be used accordingly.
Right now, Dassault Falcon publishes an average of two videos a month and all these videos fit in
the categories that are consistent across all social media channels. If an image is worth a thousand
words, what about a whole bunch of images? Videos a tremendous tool for leveraging content. They
really help promoting performance, interior designs or expertise of Dassault Falcon Jets. Yet in
order to make the most out of this wonderful tool, Dassault Falcon needs to take into account a few
recommendations that all aim at developing a strong support for the other social media channels.
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10. First of all, they need to increase the number of views on their videos. Even though they have the
highest number of views among the competitors with an average of 6,300 views per video, it is far
from being outstanding and there are still some efforts to be made to make the videos viral.
Increasing views enables to increase presence and footprint in the followers’ minds. In order to
achieve the best results, the company should have an average of one video published each week and
this video has to be shared across all social media channel. Adapting content and creating different
videos for each channel would also be a great option as it would enable to have a more tailored
approach for each type of followers. The most important thing though, is always to keep in mind
that operating on social media goes along with keeping followers active. I you want them to engage,
you have to make them participate. A good call for action in the end of each videos would permit to
draw followers to your Facebook or your Twitter page. You can also offer them to check out for
more videos by adding clickable links on the video itself.
Regarding marketing and promotion, YouTube can be an extremely efficient tool when used
correctly. Marketing and promotion create affinities by introducing an emotional connection.
How? A good way is to create content about existing customers and share their testimony about the
product. You need to produce videos with PEOPLE in situation. It helps create authenticity and
makes your message more genuine to whomever is listening.
Expertise produces reliability. Offering “behind the scene” contents creates an added value in
terms of engagement and trust. Show the process of how a plane is made, be transparent about your
practices. It helps generate trust. Publishing videos of experts also increase your credibility in terms
of expertise.
The next move: Instagram
Instagram is one of the fastest growing social media. Since its creation in 2010, more than 400
million people got active on the application. Around 80 million pictures are shared everyday, and
they got 3,5 billion "likes" on average per day. Instagram has become a major social media, and a
lot of brands have started to share content to inspire their customers. It has become a full part of a
brand's communication strategy.
Dassault Falcon is not present on Instagram. Our recommendation would be to create a profile, to
share inspirational pictures, like their main competitors do. Gulfstream and Bombardier both have a
very good follower base, allowing them to get their customers involved in their posts.
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11. Tips for a good Instagram account for Dassault Falcon Jets:
• Recreate history of the company and how it got started. Who were the main actors? Where?
Focusing on these details will produce intimacy and create emotional bonds.
• Leverage content by providing one-of-a-kind pictures (quality, lightning background). Try to
incorporate consistency in the theme in order to produce a graphical chart that reminds of the
brand.
• Instagram should not be used to promote the Jets. It should be used to promote the company’s
culture and to generate aspirational content that inspire followers and make them dream.
• It is important to make people know about the Instagram feed by announcing the launch of the
page on the other social media. A promotional campaign could be created and promoted via a
YouTube video that has an exceptional quality and which is dedicated to dreams. This video
would be shared cross networks.
• Interact with people content, engage with followers. This will increase your Instagram presence
as well as followers’ awareness. What is more, it encourages engagement.
CONCLUSION:
RECOMMENDATIONS AND ASSESSMENT
1. Dassault Falcon Jets needs to find the right balance between content duplication and
providing unique content according to each social media channel. Duplication will enable to
create consistency and spread the same message to reach the biggest audience possible. Yet, you
cannot target professionals or corporate sectors the same way you target followers on Pinterest
for example. Dassault can still duplicate the main content (while providing variation when they
can) and create additional content that are specific to each channel.
2. Pictures are worth a thousand words. For that reason, the company should seek to
strengthen YouTube as a base for providing inspirational and impacting contents to be
shared across all other media. Testimonies and behind the scene videos will help create more
intimacy and emotional bonds. Emotions are the key driver for a successful social media
strategy
3. Creating an Instagram page is a must! Dassault Falcon Jets already has the right powerful
inspirational pictures! They just do not publish them on the right social media channels!
4. Increase the number of tweets/post/videos/pictures/comments. Within a context of a
tremendous amount of information, the more you publish the better it is in terms of visibility. Be
consistent, be recurrent, show that you are here!
5. Engage with followers, show that you care and that you are not only focused on your
company and your company’s product. Social media followers are a strong community and
you need to keep them active if you want to be successful! Create discussions about the hot
topics, publish about what they care about, ask them to interact, ask feedbacks..
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12. Sources
http://blog.instagram.com/post/129662501137/150922-400million
http://www.blogdumoderateur.com/chiffres-reseaux-sociaux/
https://business.instagram.com
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/impact-social-media-marketing-trends-digital-marketing
http://www.bombardier.com/content/dam/Websites/bombardiercom/supporting-documents/BA/
Bombardier-Business-Aircraft-2015-2024-Market-Forecast-en.pdf
http://jetcraft.com/outlook/Jetcraft-10-Year-Market-Overview-2015.pdf
Instagram: Bombardier and Gulfstream
Facebook: Bombardier, Dassault Falcon Jets, Gulfstream
YouTube: Bombardier, Dassault Falcon Jets, Gulfstream
Twitter: Bombardier, Dassault Falcon Jets, Gulfstream
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13. Appendices
Appendix 1. Duplicated Content on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
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14. Appendix 2: Example of Content Aggregation on Facebook
Appendix 3: Bombardier incorporating the SuperBowl in their tweets
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