This is a case study looking into the social media outburst surrounding Velvet Sky's shut down and customer relations failure. Ignoring customers making complaints only makes things worse!

1. Velvet Sky
A saidWot Case Study
24 February 2012 – 5 March 2012

2. A reputation… grounded overnight.
BP are forcing liquidation on Velvet Sky for an amount in excess of R29m
owed for fuel bought on credit. This made the news, and almost instantly the
online space exploded!
And its no longer what you say that counts. Anything that anybody says
about a brand, whether it be on a forum or a social media profile will be seen
by hundreds if not thousands of other people.
THEY are the ones that determine the reputation of your brand and what the
public thinks of your brand.

3. Facts & Figures
This case study is based on all comments received from the 24th of
February until the 5th March 2012 relating to Velvet Sky.
It is based on English comments from around the world and
from all online media sources available.
This case study was compiled to showcase how quickly a brand’s
reputation can take a turn for the worst, and how quickly it
gets out of control on the internet.
If you would like us to do this for your brand or for something you are
passionate about, please contact us:
www.saidwot.com | infosa@saidwot.com

4. How many people were talking?
In just 11 days, over
756 people were talking about
Velvet Sky online. Their
mentions went from an
average of 5 per day,
to over 500 on the 24th
February alone.

5. What was said?

6. Where did the conversation take place?
680 comments posted on Social
Media Platforms
25 articles posted on Websites
and 34 articles on News Sites
17 discussions took place on
Forums

7. Where in the social media landscape?
83.96% 2.22%
3.53% 0.13%
Keep in mind that most people have set their privacy settings on Facebook to
‘friends only’. These comments cannot be monitored or tracked.

8. Who was talking?
@pamelaboshoff was the top tweeter, with 14
tweets during the period, reaching 205 people.
@DJFreshSA reached 177 311 people with his 2
tweets!

9. What was said?

10. Other top tweeters
By number of tweets By number of followers

11. Influential individuals
Celebrities, politicians, brands, and news sources got
involved.

12. Online hype around the brand
The 24th February saw an astronomical explosion of
mentions on the Velvet Sky brand. Days after the 24th Feb
2012, the hype was over.
504 mentions
99 mentions
25 mentions
2 mentions

13. Sentiment of the mentions
If we look at the 24th February in isolation, since that is where most of the
mentions were made, we can see that 86% were negative to the brand.

14. Who was listening?
Interestingly quite a large percentage of the audience were women
between the ages of 18 and 34 years.

15. How much was it worth?
2 873 075 people were exposed to comments and
opinions about Velvet Sky Airlines.
In marketing terms, if the company wanted to buy
advertising reaching the same number of people, it would
cost R574 615 in banner and cost per click advertising.

16. Summary
Velvet Sky handled this crisis very badly through their social media
profiles.
They only tweeted 18 times during this period, and were retroactive in
their Facebook approach, majority of these were when the damage had
already been done. If they were more proactive in letting travellers know
exactly what the statuses were with their flights, perhaps the online
explosion they experienced in terms of negative press could have been
averted.
Also, it seems whoever was running the Twitter profile thought it was a
good time to try something funny…

17. More information
This case study highlights the trends as identified in the analysis of
the data around Velvet Sky.
If you would like us to share the remainder of the analysis, as well
as the extensive tracking on this topic with you, please feel free to
contact us.
Additionally, for any demo accounts, queries or requests for
information, please don’t hesitate to contact us on the below
information.
South Africa: United States:
Tel: +27 11 021 8738 Tel: +00 (1) 704 450 2403
Email: infosa@saidwot.com Email: infous@saidwot.com
Web: www.saidwot.com