In their Brands-Only Summit presentation, United Airlines' Manager of Social Media Programs, Lora O'Riordan, and Director of Social Media, Karin Moan, share how their merger with another airline led to the creation of a new social media team. They explain how the new team combined marketing, operations, and everything in between to focus on customer service and responding.

1. SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/SUMMIT2013ORLANDO
United social media
LORA O’RIORDAN & KARIN MOAN
UNITED AIRLINES
DECEMBER 9–11, 2013

2. 1
United Social Media
Dec
10,
2013

3. 2
Introductions
Karin Moan
Director, Social Media
Lora O’Riordan
Manager, Social Media
Operations (formerly one
woman social team)

4. 3
This is how United Social Media started over
again

5. 4
v Monitoring nearly 25,000 incoming messages per week
v 24/7 operations
v Responding to customers within 1.5 hrs
v 12 Reservation agents supporting ticket based service needs
v Managing and escalating critical issues
v Controlling and tracking conversations
v Engaging customers with product and services updates
UNITED SOCIAL MEDIA @A GLANCE
Blogs
Forums
News

6. 5
First Back to Basics
1. Organization – Created a larger team to support social (More
than 2)
2. Customer focus – talked to our most active but frustrated followers
about our social presence gaps
3. Company wide alignment – brought teams together across the
organization behind a social focused path
4. Data and insights – used heavily to plan and justify the path forward
5. Defined our marketing strategy and plan for social channels
6. Prioritized - Set schedules and milestones and empowered the team
to move quickly
7. Identified key technology needs
Without responding and listening at a scale and level matched to our
volume of posts, no campaign, proactive post, offer or deal would be
effective.
Priority #1 was responding to our fans and followers then we could
focus on marketing effectively in the channels.
Let’s
begin…

7. 6
Operations
/ Reactive
Marketing
/ Proactive
The Operations and Marketing team is under one
umbrella and work side by side

8. 7
The United Social ecosystem
*
*United Owned Channel

9. 8
We asked some key questions --
§ Who are the customers we’ll be talking with?
§ Where are they connecting with us?
§ How many people do we need?
§ How do we get the people and who do we need?
§ What will we gain from investing in this?
§ How do we manage this day-to-day?
Focused on Priority #1 -- Responding to our
fans/followers

10. 9
Who are our fans/followers requesting support?
Surprising findings?
46%
16%
10%
10%
16%
2%
Premier Levels of Social Media Customers
General Member
Premier Silver
Premier Gold
Premier Platinum
Premier 1K
Global Services
44%
12%
11%
10%
7%
5%
4%
3%
3%
1%
Behavioral Segments of Social Media
Customers
Road Warriors
Mile Maximizers
Almost Elite
Bargain Hunter
Schedule Sensitive
Too New To Score
Unscored
Non-Flying
Earners
Globe Trotter
§ Our best customers were tweeting and posting – so we had to change course
­ 46% of MileagePlus members identified as General, 56% Premiers
­ More than 45% of members fell in to “Road Warrior”/”Luxury Seeker” segment

11. 10
§ Which social channels to connect?
­ Twitter and Facebook – these were their preferred places to
connect. But Instagram and LinkedIn were also of interest.
§ How many people do we need?
­ We looked at data to tell us how many people we needed to
respond in 1.5 hours or less
§ How do we get the people and who do we need?
­ We partnered across the organization. We needed people who
help in the moment.
§ What will we gain from investing in this?
­ Customer satisfaction, loyalty, revenue, very happy travelers
and great tweets/posts
§ How do we manage this day-to-day?
­ We defined shift schedules, technology needs, training, goals
and what to do when things don’t go as planned
Knowing who we were talking with we could
answer all of the questions

12. 11
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
0
5,000
10,000
15,000
8-­‐Dec
15-­‐Dec
22-­‐Dec
29-­‐Dec
5-­‐Jan
12-­‐Jan
19-­‐Jan
26-­‐Jan
Response
Rate
Messages
Total
Inbound
Messages
Messages
Requiring
Responses
0.0%
2.0%
4.0%
6.0%
8.0%
10.0%
0
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
8-­‐Dec
15-­‐Dec
22-­‐Dec
29-­‐Dec
5-­‐Jan
12-­‐Jan
19-­‐Jan
26-­‐Jan
Response
Rate
Messages
Total
Inbound
Messages
Messages
Requiring
Responses
Messages
Not
Requiring
Response
(NRR)
Response
Rate
Social
Media
Support
Facebook
Twi>er
Facebook Twitter
• Strong partnership with Reservations enabled us to build the support
team we needed to assist customers
• Close monitoring and reporting of our progress, the volume of
conversations, and sentiment
• Identification of our customers in social channels – getting to know
them even better
• Tools help responses flow from community managers to our social
agents and helped establish a baseline for reporting and tracking
• Focus on the core community – those we talk with the most
• Reaching out quickly when faced with crises or issues
The foundation of a top shelf response operation is in
place

13. 12
Tweetchats at #unitedplanechat
574,306 accounts reached
3,726,454 impressions
Advertising Sept ‘13
Also testing Google+ hangouts!
Hangout on Air with the App team
November ‘13
260,137 accounts reached
3,450,552 impressions
Winter Ops Feb ‘13
235,139 accounts reached
4,366,344 impressions
Bag services June ‘13

14. 13

15. 14
Fly the Friendly Skies

16. 15
United Progress – p.s.
§ The coast to coast domestic premium service
with International amenities.

17. 16

18. 17

19. 18
18
United Social Media Growth in 2013
Month (# of Posts)
Source: Facebook Insights, SocialEngage, Google Analytics, YouTube Analytics
* Facebook Positive Interactions are a combination of user likes, comments, shares, clicks and video plays
** Tweets are Outbound @united tweets (not replies or DMs)
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
350,000
400,000
450,000
500,000
0
100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
Feb(40) Mar (54) Apr(72) May(81) Jun(94) Jul(67) Aug(86) Sep(102) Oct(96)
PositiveScore
PageLikes
Facebook Page Likes and Interactions
Page Likes Positive Score
Linear (Page Likes) Linear (Positive Score)
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
350,000
Feb-13 Mar-13 Apr-13 May-13 Jun-13 Jul-13 Aug-13 Sep-13 Oct-13
NewVisitor%
Visits
Hub Visits and New Visitor %
Visits New Visitor %
Linear (Visits) Linear (New Visitor %)
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
350,000
Feb-13 Mar-13 Apr-13 May-13 Jun-13 Jul-13 Aug-13 Sep-13 Oct-13
Tweets
Followers
Twitter Followers and Tweets
Followers Tweets
Linear (Followers) Linear (Tweets)
0
100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
700,000
Feb-13 Mar-13 Apr-13 May-13 Jun-13 Jul-13 Aug-13 Sep-13 Oct-13
Views
YouTube Views
Views Linear (Views)

20. 19
19
United Social Media Growth in 2013 (Cont.)
Source: LinkedIn Insights , Statigram
* LinkedIn Engagement Rate is Engaged Users divided by Reach )
0.00%
0.20%
0.40%
0.60%
0.80%
1.00%
1.20%
1.40%
1.60%
1.80%
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
70,000
80,000
90,000
May-13 Jun-13 Jul-13 Aug-13 Sep-13 Oct-13
EngagementRate
Followers
LinkedIn Followers and Engagement Rate
Followers Engagement Rate
Linear (Followers) Linear (Engagement Rate)
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
Feb-12 Mar-12 Apr-12 May-12 Jun-12 Jul-12 Aug-12 Sep-12 Oct-12
PositiveScore
PageLikes
Instagram Followers and Likes Per Post
Followers Likes Per Post Linear (Followers) Linear (Likes Per Post)

21. 20
§ Looking back to 2012 and earlier, one would hardly recognize the United
brand from a social media perspective
§ The increased focus on social media, particularly from a customer service
perspective, has been transformative
§ The focus on foundational quality in customer service and responding in
general – versus simply increasing the volume of brand content pushed out –
has been strategically beneficial
§ The “black hole” is no longer there
§ It wasn’t too late for United
§ Our customers have benefited greatly
We will continue to evolve, grow, optimize and improve our social
presence; deepen alignment across the company; bridge our
digital ecosystems and focus on providing a flyer friendly
experience for our fans and followers
20
Then vs. Now Summary

22. 21
ThankYou *
Karin Moan
Director, Social Media
karin.moan@united.com
@united
facebook.com/united
www.unitedhub.com
youtube.com/united
instagram.com/united
linkedin.com
Lora O’Riordan
Manager, Social Media Operations
lora.oriordan@united.com
@united
facebook.com/united
www.unitedhub.com
youtube.com/united
intagram.com/united
linkedin.com

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