For this assignment we are highlighting a company that has successfully used social media. I have chosen to look at Southwest Airlines again and assess their efforts.
Southwest Airlines has fully embraced social media. The outlet that social media gives is very much in line with the philosophy of the company. They try to make the customers feel like a part of the company and create a friendship between them. The success that they have had can be seen in comparing the followers of Southwest Airlines (1,300,000) compared to that of Delta Airlines (360,000).
Even when things go wrong with social media Southwest has been able to create a success out of it. Back in August Southwest provided a special code for reduced fares for those that followed them on social media. The deluge of people trying to use the code brought the Southwest web servers to a crawl.
The web server issues created a bunch of frustration for the users and many had grown angry. Some users were never able to get on, while others had multiple charges for their flights. After all of the dust settled, Southwest did provide vouchers for those that had issues and cleared all of the duplicate credit card charges.
This was an example on how both successfully use social media as well as how to have a failure. Southwest Airlines continues to have a high social media presence. I believe in the future they will need to make sure they are prepared for the repercussions that will occur when you are target marketing to over 1 million people.
http://smartblogs.com/social-media/2012/08/10/how-southwest-airlines-bounced-back-social-media-snag/
http://rebeccamurtagh.com/southwest-50-facebook-promo-luv3like-fail/
Richard,
ReplyDeleteSW idea sounds like a stellar use of social media -- I'd have to give them props for leveraging it that way.
Do you feel like social media outlets have helped them dispel the image that the experience on one of their flights vs. a competitor is inferior?
They ALWAYS get made fun of in late night …
http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/2009/04/jay-leno-picks-on-southwest-ai.html/
Nice -- how well are they following the rules of PR?
ReplyDeleteI was unaware that they offered reduced fare for those who followed them on social media sights...I think that allows Southwest to gain a larger part of the market share and keeps the "word-of-mouth" advertising positive.
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