I’ve been seeing a lot of airlines jump into social media lately – especially on Twitter. But once they do that, most of them run around like a headless chicken – or at least that how it appears to the outsider viewer. Let me share with you a couple of examples.

Emirates Airlines – which pitches itself as one of the best in the world, joined Twitter at the start of the year, and posted 19 updates about their destinations – all on the same day (see pic below). And at the other end of the spectrum, JetBlue does quite a good job of engaging over half a million of its followers with a mix of witty remarks, contests and deals. But all of them seem to be figuring out what to do. So here’s an analogy that might explain things a little.

Why Social Media = BBQ Cookout Party
At a BBQ cookout party, people are with those they trust, with those they consider friends. They give advice, seek advice (often on BBQ cooking), share thoughts and stories, laugh a little and have fun. What they DO NOT do …

Image by brentdanley via Flickr

Did you know that JetBlue has over 507,000 followers on Twitter? (as of 13 May, 2009). Yes, that’s more than half a million “fans” of the brand who choose to be exposed to the airline’s 140 character-long short messages. And this is almost 20 times greater than the second most followed airline, Southwest, which has just over 27,000 followers. But why? What is it that JetBlue does that makes it such a loved brand on Twitter?

I did some basic analysis and here are some stats for those of you who like numbers. Of the last 62 messages JetBlue sent out,

42 were replies to others (68%)
33 contained external links (53%)
12 were free tips, like how to overcome jetlag (20%)
10 answered customer service  queries (16%)
9 had sales offers/promotions of some sort (14%)
6 were Re-tweets (including one from SimpliFlying!) (10%)

It’s NOT just about selling on Twitter
The numbers tell a story. Do you realize that the overwhelming majority of messages were interacting with individuals, as they were replies. And there were …

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="202" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption]

Rohit Bhargava is the author of a recently released book called Personality Not Included and also the blogger of the very popular Influential Marketing Blog. Recently, when he was asked “what is one brand desperately in need of personality?”, his answer (unsurprisingly) was United Airlines. Here is what he had to say:
The one that stands out for me simply because I travel a lot and live in a major hub is United Airlines. The amount of money they waste on brand campaigns is just staggering. Who in America hasn’t heard of United Airlines? No one. So why spend all this money to tell them who you are? They have so much potential to reinvent the way that they train their employees and that they use social media to allow people to have a more direct relationship with them. Sometimes I dream about getting them as a client because there are so many solutions that could make such a big impact on their brand. It’s uncommon to have a brand with that much untapped potential.
I couldn’t agree …

How would you feel if an airline starts following you on Twitter, and not only that, starts interacting with you as well? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to vote for the name of the next big thing in the airline industry in your country? Or how about feeling truly special on International Women’s Day?

These are all things airlines are doing these days to engage the customer. Advertisements can only create a certain level of awareness. But it is the active interaction with the customer, and the ability to surprise him or her like Virgin, which leads to true brand awareness, and ultimately trust and loyalty. A great example was how Singapore Airlines engaged their customers prior to launching their first A380 flights to London.
Here are three instances of how airlines around the world are delighting (or surprising) the customer by getting up, close and personal with them.

Popular blogger Jonathan Fields was recently “followed” by JetBlue on Twitter. He was initially surprised but soon was conversing with a real person from …