The document discusses the evolution of social media engagement strategies employed by major airlines, highlighting American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and JetBlue Airways. It emphasizes the importance of customer engagement, real-time communication, and tailored marketing approaches on various platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Each airline's unique strategies and challenges underscore the necessity of adapting to customer needs and leveraging social media for enhanced service and brand loyalty.

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Prepared By
Satyashil Rangare
IIM Trichy Intern at Simplify360
Edited By:
Rajashree Das
Social Media Analyst at Simplify360

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Table of Contents
Introduction ………………………………………….……………………………………… 4
American Airlines ……… ………………………………………………………………….. 6
Delta Airlines…………………………………………………………………………………. 12
South West Airlines ………………………………….……………………………………… 17
Jet Blue Airlines ………………………………………………………………..…………….... 22
Virgin American Airlines …………………………………………………………………… 25

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Introduction
Over the years airline industry has seen many ups and downs, and more so between the two extremes. This industry has gone deep down and struggled hard for its survival continuously over the years.
Airlines industry always faces the heat of the customers, when their problems are not solved, when they are facing difficulties because of the delays in the flight schedule, and any other inconvenience made to passengers. Therefore, building up a proper customer engagement is very important for the industry. So to improve customer engagement, an increasing number of airlines are creating an active social media presence on social media channels, such as Twitter& Facebook and check-in locations for mobile application are made available for convenience.
With the growth of technology and continuous innovation and expansion of social media platforms, ignoring its importance and impact is impossible; especially for a brand with an enormous customer base, least to say about the amount of time the customers spend on those platforms.
With the industries using social media as a platform for marketing the products, the relation between social media and the benefits to business have gone strong. Nowadays social media is not only used to reach people in mass but also the trend of acknowledging people from text-based to real-time acknowledgment is on progress. Customers are now sharing and expressing their opinion about everything and at any time of the day, and also attracting / influencing the opinion of others. Not only this, the ways the customers are accessing internet have also evolved over the years. Now the customers have internet in the hands and can engage and share their opinion on social networking sites.
With the development of social media platforms, a number of leading global airlines have taken a different route and approach to market them.

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Some of the players are engaging in some novel ways to engage with the customers to build long lasting relationships with them.
Let's take a look at the approach of the biggest players in the airline industry in the US.
 American Airlines was the most social Airlines Company in March 2014.
 United Airlines, US Airways and American Airlines combined occupied 65% of the social buzz in Airline industry.
 With a Facebook engagement score at 92.58, Southwest bagged the first rank among the top 10.
 With a Twitter engagement score of 88.40, American Airlines bagged the first rank among the top 10.
 American Airlines, Delta and Southwest constitute 69% of the industry's Facebook fan base.
 JetBlue has the largest number of followers on Twitter, 1.87M.

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American Airlines
American Airlines is the world's largest airline. They serve over 250 cities in over 40 countries with more than 4000 daily flights. On online media, American's website provides users with facilities to book tickets online, check fares, along with personalized news, information and other travelling offers.
American Airlines is one of those organizations who believes and understand the power of social media. It is one of the forward thinking organizations and is building strong customer engagement over different social media platforms.

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Engagement Strategy
American Airlines at the moment is focusing on the growth of social media so that customers can connect with them in real-time for any sort of queries or issues. They also use the channels to broadcast any important news, assistance or mass conversation.
The policies which American airlines is following with respect to social media are
 Keep your customers at the center
 Develop skills to facilitate customers in every respect
 Be active and vigilant all the time for the customers.
Following its policies, during the hurricane Sandy, American airlines was one of the most responsive airlines to provide facilities to the customers.
The American airlines saw a huge spike in brand during the merger announcement with US Airways. After sometime they began the transformation of old aircrafts and took help of social media by sharing videos, images and organizing events. On Twitter they started the campaign using #newAmerican

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When the Twitter feed isn't busy with customers, they focus on community building messages with fans.
American Airlines also ask their fans to participate in and give opinions about their services. Also American Airlines focus on campaigning via images on Twitter.
#newAmerican
The loyalty campaign of American Airlines #newAmerican is capturing the re- emergence of the brand in social media. #newAmerican trended on Twitter on brand reveal day and has continued since as it represents the symbol of change.

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Social Media Channels
Twitter --- On Twitter, American's primarily focus is on customer service and media relations. They also handle customer relationship strategy on Twitter by asking their experience on the flight.
Facebook ---- On Facebook, American's strategy is mostly related to growing the brand. It gives them the opportunity to handle the customer’s views and opinions. They also talk about what's happening in the business by sharing the stories.

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On Google+, it is observed that active fans are more from Asia and the Middle East rather than the domestic population. The content strategy here is mostly relevant to international presence.
On YouTube, American's share videos and link it with Facebook and Twitter. They have started behind the scenes video series here, which is doing pretty well. It provides the customers with the insights behind the decisions made.
LinkedIn --- American's use LinkedIn as B2B tool. It became the best platform for them to recruit people because of the increasing number of professionals using the online social platform.
They have little presence on Pinterest and Instagram. Both the platforms are used for sharing visuals and to extent used for promotional campaigns.
The stream is mostly made up for customer inquiries or the marketing ad campaigns for increasing the brand recognition among the customers.
They are very fast in responding to their customer’s problems and at the same time they never fail to acknowledge a person appreciating the service.

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Challenges
Empowering most loyal followers
AA also pays special attention to its fans of Twitter.
They invite their biggest fans to a flight where they show them certain aircraft amenities, and they let them to talk to the higher executives also.
Challenges and approach
According to the social media analyst, Katy Philips of American Airlines, the major challenges before them are Education, Resources and Training program for the employees to perform and provide better services to the customers.
To approach best services, American’s are engaging themselves in getting meaningful metrics from the social networking platforms and regular addressing the new issues which comes across.
They also want to increase their presence on major platforms so that they can engage more number of customers.

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Delta Airlines
Delta Airlines earned the top honors in the Best use of Twitter category in PR daily's digital and Social Media Awards.
Customer service is all about listening to customers, hearing their needs, and responding in time. Delta Airlines provides such service 24 hours a day, seven days a week, no matter where the customers are.
Delta Airlines, Twitter handle is @DeltaAssist which they use for customer support with which they track the pulse of their passengers and respond to their queries.

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Social Engagement
Social Media Strategy
1. Empowering the employees with information
Customer service agents were given the ultimate authority to handle customer grievances and solve their queries. This meant that the employees were the only point of contact for customers, so that no one would be stuck in an endless automated phone loop.
2. Connect offline with online
All the employees in Delta were trained to give emphasis to "Twitter Watch". The idea was to help out the airport employee at any time; any Twitter agent see's the problem.
3. Understand that there are other usage of Social Media
In Delta airlines office, marketing and customer services work in a close proximity. The idea was to use the social media in a much better way rather than marketing only, it’s no longer spreading the brand name but also to create a strong relationship between the brand and the customer.
•Delta doesnt simply listen to tweets. They take the time to understand the situation
Paying Attention
•Delta is quick to respond and without having a canned response with personalized responses
Interaction
•Behind the scenes management and processes lead to an immediate reaction on behalf of the brand.
Management

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Social Media Channels
Delta Airlines uses online social media by engaging customers with no kind of interruptions. It provides them the platform to engage in direct conversations with the customers.
Delta Airlines is engaged in Social media on six major platforms, Blogs, Wikis, RSS Feed, Facebook and Twitter.
Blogs
By using blogs Delta airlines focuses on
 Destination / Travel
 Entertainment
 History
 News updates
Wiki
Delta Airlines wiki's are a brief overview of the company, and the site provides the information on History and facts of Delta, Operations, Revenue and Operating Income and Personnel Information related to Delta.

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Facebook
On Facebook, Delta Airlines focuses on marketing and uses the platform as a marketing tool. Delta's policy is to keep frequent flyers engage and regularly updated with what the airline is doing.
Delta's aim at producing the following benefits with the current passengers
 Can direct the customers to various social sites and increasing the customer engagement.
 Consumer traffic on the website can be managed in a more efficient way.
 Provides a central location so that the customers will not have to go to separate channels for their problems.
 Increasing awareness of various offerings which concerns the customers.
Twitter
On Twitter, Delta Airline uses two different Twitter handles. The first one, @DeltaNewsroom is used to share regular updates about the Delta Airlines news with the public, whereas the second handle @DeltaAssist is used to answer any questions or queries raised by the customers and solve it on real time basis.
Challenges
Online Social media has increased the brand awareness among the customers and given them high online time exposure. Big task with Delta airline is to build and

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develop a brand personality in front of the customers, and build a real connection with them.
They have so much of relevant and valuable content present online that it can be easily overlooked. They should bring all the elements related to customer engagement and justify the promise of quality.

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SouthWest Airlines
Transparency is the key word for Southwest Airlines. They want their customer services to be the best in the industry. With this aim in mind they gave the chance to their customers to have a look at what exactly happens at the backstage of an airline, and how it is operated.
This strategy is also reflected in their social media campaigns. The social media team involved with the Southwest airlines is also aware of the other operations in the system and not just the customer service.
With a Twitter engagement score of 83.08, Southwest Airlines is ranked third. It's a very popular airline in social media with high level of influence and engagement with its followers as well. Southwest uses Facebook and Twitter not only as a platform for marketing but also as a public relations and brand management tool.

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Engagement Strategy
Southwest Airlines focuses immensely on social media. They believe in sharing content which reflects their core values such as
Charity --- From time to time Southwest launches some charity campaigns for their customer which is their core value.
Patriotism --- Southwest Airlines provide benefits for veterans/military travelers along with constant posts of appreciation for the troops and recognition with specific stories, including a country music concert in the air.
LUV --- Southwest have got NYSE ticker called LUV and they are situated at Love field in Dallas, Texas.
Inspired by this the Airline was able to pay tribute by taking this widely used ticker symbol as their own. They’ve launched campaign promotions like “12 Days of LUV” and slogans like “Labor of LUV Day” for Labor Day and “LUVing our Employees, LUVing our Communities”.

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Social Media Channels
Southwest launched Nuts about Southwest as a means of giving the customers a look into the operations side of the airlines. It also allows the customers to interact and build personal relationships with the employees.
These campaigning programs now serve as
 A virtual focus group
 For breaking news
 A place for establishing new ideas

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Many of the employees of Southwest Airlines are also into blogging. The blog gives the employees a platform to share the industry knowledge to the customers, a platform where they share their stories, and connect with the customers to the Southwest Culture.
Southwest believes in open interaction with the customers and they want to address every query of a customer, with this aim in mind they have a vast presence in social media. Their customers are communication through a number of different online channels. Southwest Airlines is present in Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn with equal intensity. They have a very rich a broad rich with the audience.
Southwest has a solid social media strategy in place, so their aim in the near future is to keep doing everything they are currently doing. As Southwest attracts more ‘fans’ and ‘followers’ they will begin to devote more time and resources to social media.
Southwest believes that social media will become more important in the future, and are planning accordingly.
Southwest Twitter feed has many "thank you" tweets and @mentions. Tweets and updates from Southwest aren't just messages. They are all more like a personal communication. The company uses a number of social media platforms and tools to reach its customers. They give customers and employees face time online.

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Southwest Airlines knows its values and how to handle the things at the right time in an appropriate way. Whenever a campaign becomes a failure, the company uses social media to engage in personal responses, and gain followers successfully. They even refund tickets, if the customers has any inconveniences and that's they are one of the best in providing Extraordinary social Customer services.

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Jet Blue Airlines
JetBlue started its social media campaign with the ice storm of 2007, it was this incident that encouraged the airline to use social media.
According to JetBlue officials, social media allows a close conversation with 84.18 Twitter engagement score JetBlue stands second. In addition to this JetBlue also displays a very high level of engagement with its followers which helps them in building high level of trust with its people. Regarding its social media strategy, JetBlue engages more customers on Twitter than on Facebook.
JetBlue main strategy is to put people's problems ahead of everything, and they ensure that their social media efforts are aligned to that aim. So they always make their customers feel valuable and give support to them at every situation.
Wordpress
•Opportunity for the brand to promote its campaigns
•Attracts resources
•Destination for material on travel, aviation and interact
Twitter
•Highly effective Customer service
•Monitoring tool for brand mentions
Facebook
•Connect with fans online
•Apps provide opportunity for customized engagement
Youtube
•Upload advertisements, promotions and other video content relevant to the

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Engagement Strategy
In case of JetBlue, their website is the main method by which customers can buy tickets online. Not only this over the years JetBlue also started giving their customers’ facility for online boarding passes.
JetBlue also launched an online game show and successfully promoted vacation packages. This way JetBlue demonstrated the best online marketing usage via social media to gaming to content marketing.
Social Media Channels
JetBlue uses social media platforms such as Twitter to announce deals and updates to its customers, and also as a medium for responding to customers problems.
The tone of communication with the customers is very casual style. They also translate this on their flight experience as well. By keeping the interactions friendly they come across more genuine feeling with the customers.

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JetBlue builds very interesting and informative content which the customers want to read, know and share. They have a presence on few selected platforms which suits their goals. They use Facebook mostly for sharing content related to marketing and promotions, but for customers service they use Twitter.
JetBlue's customers seem to be satisfied with the services that are offered and appreciate the commitment. JetBlue spreads friendly and welcoming nature of the brand with the motto of "Happy Jeting" and "We love to Smile". Customers have also given positive responses to the facilities offered by JetBlue.
With the current slogan of "You Above All" they have demonstrated the brand's commitment.

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Virgin American Airlines
Virgin American airlines has one of the largest and fastest growth rates on Facebook and Twitter and the presence of these airlines in social networking sites is far more impressive than any other player in these industry.
Virgin America mainly targets the young, urban, tech-savvy professional using smartphones and is very active on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. So for promotions and marketing themselves they make use of these platforms to a great extent.

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Engagement Strategy
Everyone in the organization is active on social media. Customer’s interactions and providing them the best facilities is the priority of Virgin Airlines. All the employees, right from the chairman to the new recruits, are engaged in direct customer engagement through social media. Even the company CEO Richard tweets and blogs all the time.
They believe in feedbacks and consider it as a sign of improvement, and that's why social media is the best platform for them. They listen to the conversations, they interact and they use social media to listen to the conversation about Virgin and its competitors.
Focusing on positive stories is their major strength but at the same time they make sure that they don't ignore the negative activity. As a matter of fact, employees use it to find what the customer need is and what they want. This way they expand their brand and network.

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Twitter is the main promotional platform for Virgin America. It aims to attract new customers which are in the tech-savvy market and promotes tweets which are campaign advertisements that will appear in the social networking sites.
Social Media Channels
Virgin America's aim is to create brand awareness, customer engagement and creates emotional connect with the customers. In Twitter they respond to almost all the queries of a customer and even provide facilities to the customers in the best possible ways.
In Facebook, Virgin engages in a 2-way conversation with consumers to increase the brand loyalty. Virgin's Facebook page showcase events, promotions, new routes and links to the other social media sites such as Instagram and Pinterest. Virgin America claims that they have positioned themselves as high tech airline, and thus a good strategy to attract the tech-savvy marketing which creates the main buzz in social media.
Virgin America is the best example of an organization utilizing the full power of social media. They are looking to build their brand both online and offline, so they rightly targeted their customers by choosing a perfect target audience. They believe in creating a holistic management by engaging everyone on social media. Virgin

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America makes a great effort to be at the forefront of current technology trends which shows how much they are concerned about their customers thinking and providing the latest technology facilities to them.

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