News for the Hospitality Executive |
Southwest
Airlines is Riding the Blogosphere Like a Wild Horse!
"Southwest
Airlines is riding the blogosphere like a wild horse," read the program
description of Paula Berg's talk at the 2009 Inbound Marketing Summit,
which
was held in Berg opened her
presentation by talking about the Southwest Airline TV show, where the
camera
followed passengers and crews around behind the scenes of the Airport.
With the
show, they were able to reach a totally different demographic than
before,
which was basically males involved in business with an interest in
sports. The
show was aired on a Monday night, and the following Tuesday two
interesting
things would happen; one the revenue would go up 9%, and two, they
would
receive a lot of job applications.
When the show finished,
Southwest was looking for something to fill the void, so in April,
2006, they
began their blog 'Nuts About
Southwest'. The blog became very successful and served as a virtual
focus
group, a resource for employees, a place for Southwest to write news
the way
they wanted, a place to share expertise, a place to post breaking news,
and a
way to help increase their search engine rankings. They then handpicked
30
employees from all departments, including the flight crew, to blog, and
gave
them two guidelines; write what you are passionate about, and write
when you
feel like it. Berg says some of the bloggers are prolific and others
hide from
her in the hallway. In May of 2008,
Southwest Airlines relaunched their blog, to make it more web 2.0, by
adding
new elements such as videos and podcasts. Visits went up by 25%. Berg presented case
studies from the last three years which show how Southwest has
effectively
made, managed, and maintained successful online communities, and the
lessons
they have learned along the way. One case study was called 'Open Season
on
Assigned Seating'. Basically, the CEO announced on a blog that
Southwest would
change the open seating policy to assigned seating. His blog post
received 700
comments from customers voicing their opinions, many of which opposed
the
change. Therefore, he decided to keep the open seating policy.
Another
thing that Southwest learned from this was that travelers were unhappy
with
their boarding process so Southwest was able to adopt a new process.
Southwest
declared on their website, "You Spoke and We Listened - Southwest
Airlines
Says Open Seating is Here to Stay!" Another case study
Berg discusses is called 'A Story With Legs'. This was a case where
Southwest
asked a passenger to cover up her outfit because she was scantily
dressed. Six
months later the story broke in the San Diego Tribune and on the Today
Show.
Many people were outraged and comments exploded online. Southwest
finally apologized,
but Berg admits they should have done it earlier. The lesson they
learned from that case served them well when the next crisis hit. This
time it
involved two girls, and the case was called ‘Too Pretty to Fly’. In
this case,
the girls were behaving very unladylike on a flight, and were yelling
profanities at other passengers. When the plane landed the girls were
escorted
off by four police officers. The girls, Nisreen Swedberg and Sarah
Williams,
claimed that they were banned from flying all Southwest airlines for
being 'too
pretty'. "I think they were just discriminating against us because we
were
young decent-looking girls. I mean, nobody else on the plane looked
like us
except us. The flight attendants were like older ladies. We were
younger. Who
knows they could have been just jealous of us because we were younger,"
said Williams. This time Southwest responded earlier by releasing a video which told
their
side of the story. The video received 250,000 views and was number 8 of
the
most viewed videos. This time Southwest received tremendous support
from the
public and other bloggers. Southwest also
employs other social media platforms including Twitter. They currently
have
750,000 Twitter followers. They recently posted a 2-day fare sale which
was
driven by social media and had tremendous results. Video also plays an
important role for Southwest. Perhaps you have seen the Rapping Flight
Attendant.
This video has 525,126 views. A passenger took the video of flight
attendant
David Holmes and the video was featured on CNN. Berg isn't sure why,
but
another video about Engine
Washing has received 91,900 views. According to Berg,
there are a few key members on their social media team including 3
primary
listeners and spokespeople, 2 people doing video, and a writer. Other travel blogs
the Southwest team reads include the Cranky Flier, Gadling travel blog,
FlyerTalk, Runaway Girl, Aviation week, and Rick Seany. Berg gives some tips
about using social media and says, "Make it personal, act fast, don't
rely
on numbers alone, don't be afraid to join the conversation,
educate employees, live and breath social media, and have fun – it’s
not a
burden, it's a gift!" If you would like to learn more about Hospitality Internet Marketing, O’Rourke Hospitality can help! call 978-465-5955 or send an email to [email protected]. |
Contact: O’Rourke Hospitality Marketing Newburyport http://www.orourkehospitality.com |