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Southwest Airlines
Getting out in front of customers, and issues, has been a prime motivating force for Southwest Airlines adopting social media, says Paula Berg, the company's manager of emerging media. She and her staff of seven collaborate to produce an award-winning blog; pages on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; channels on YouTube and iTunes; a Flickr gallery; and a presence on a variety of message boards and comment areas on popular airline passenger advocacy sites.
From a marketing standpoint, "transparent and authentic" social media was a logical step for an airline that prides itself on being fun and unorthodox in its approach to finding customers and gaining their loyalty, Berg says. A few years ago, it allowed its jets and crews to star in a reality TV show, "Airline," on A&E. Despite some cringe moments, Berg says the number of job applications tripled after each episode, and ticket sales also increased. Videos of flight attendant David Holmes rapping safety instructions before takeoff became a viral hit on YouTube, and drew interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Jay Leno, and The Wall Street Journal.
The blog launched in April 2006, and the Facebook and Twitter initiatives came next. More than 68,000 Facebook users have friended Southwest, and 168,000 Twitter users follow the company. Both sites allow comments from fans and critics, all of which Berg's team monitors and reacts to, if necessary. "We're not afraid," Berg says. The guiding principle with all the interactions is to live by the golden rule, and be gracious. (And entertaining. Berg's team recently created a comical six-minute video of employees acting from a script provided in real time by Twitter posters and promoted on the blog and Facebook page.)
Different members of the team are responsible for different channels - blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. - and are encouraged to be as open and engaging as possible with the public. They are trusted to be experts with their tools and their interactions, and to act in the best interests of the company - they are not supervised on a daily basis by legal or marketing teams.
They also carry the company flag into online disputes.
"If there's a virtual riot going on" about an issue to do with Southwest at one of a number of popular online message boards for airline passengers, Berg says social media is her first line of engagement and defense. She'll weigh in and offer her thoughts, and then check back regularly to engage with other writers as the conversation progresses. She says she's generally found that she gets "good responses, even if they disagree with me," and that her reputation among regular message board users is strong enough that people she's never met or spoken with will come to her defense on an issue when critics start running her down.
She says she has learned to trust both Southwest's employees and Southwest's customers, and that the airline values what they all have to offer. She has also become a sought-after public speaker and social-media evangelist herself.
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