How can companies sceptical of social media see the benefits? |
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Berlin/Germany (gbip/04.10.2011) - The World Route Development Forum this year in Berlin has taken the opportunity to set up a couple of briefing on different aspects of social media. During the conference, which has been finished on Tuesday, seven experts did present their findings on how important the new media are for the aviation industry. World Routes 2011 Social Media Briefings - A summary reportSven Solterbeck was at least the last speaker. Hence he was able to sum up a bit the words from the other social media geeks. Mark Scourse from 3Sixty pointed out in his presentation from an airport perspective, that it is better to have genuine fans on the appropriate channel like Twitter or Facebook than thousands of never really reacting followers. Then the community, reached by an airport, could be an asset for talks with the airlines concerning new routes. Justin Meyer, marketing manager and aviation geek from Kansas City International Airport (KCI) as well Julian Carr, MD of the airline bmibaby, told us from the old days, where passengers sat down with books and newspapers, waiting for the flight. Today more and more passengers are being online during their stay at the airport. Carr said: "Smartphone + social media + brands online = disinhibition." Moreover it was never easier than today to communicate with executives via Twitter, Facebook, what else. KCI is an excellent example, which engagement with customers can be achieved, when passion, patience and committment is driving the communication. Even if negative feedback from user side is arriving the social media guys from the airport, some few friendly words may help to turn this critism into a positive way. Shashank Nigam from Simpliflying gave his statement on important it is to prepare yourself as an airline or airport in case of a crisis. It may take only a few minutes, that a picture or a Tweet from a crisis scene is online. Instant feedback, full transparancy and dormant blogs for crisis cases help to get the media buzz under control without getting your legacy web sites running into denial of service. According to Bernard Lavelle, Sales Director at London City Airport (LCY), users are "new researchers" for route development. "Engage as well with internal champions to ensure support within their companies." Routes Online has tweeted on Wednesday (Update 05.10.11), that a video of Bernard "should be online by the end of next week. Check our weekly The HUB newsletter for updates". Finally Christi McNeill, emerging media strategy specialist at Southwest Airlines, gave us some good examples how employees share their behind the scene knowledge for passengers. One presentation we have missed. Dr. Mathew McDougall (CEO at Digital Jungle) was in Berlin to give us a bit more insight into the Chinese Social Media Universe. As Matt told me, in China social media users are much more keen on having "big numbers" of followers, even if they have to pay for followers. His presentation slides one can find here. His book with the same title is walking "through the Chinese internet landscape and then drill down into the social media platforms that marketers need to consider when engaging with a Chinese audience". Lost in social media? Sceptical? Be encouraged!"I have had the last session today", Sven Solterbeck mentioned. "Did presenting my thoughts on how companies sceptical of social media can see the benefit. In one word: You can not run away from Social Media." It is essential, not whether to do but how to do. You cannot avoid that people are talking about your company. With everything an airport or airline is going to public they will be noticed in social media. Sometimes this exceed the view on passengers. Target group of an airport for example are airlines, handler, destinations, authorities and brand embassadors. So what might be the reason for being sceptical on social media? Often the use of social media is a result of a certain kind of appropriation. It is not like that, that you could go through stream an messages comming with Twitter, reading bit for bit. You would be lost. You would like to get rid of this. The catching of information is by the way and selective. Experts are used to get aware accidentially of the buzz and trends. Monitoring tools help to categorize this stream of information. Socialmediaguide.com found out 50 definitions about social media. My favourite is the "digital word of mouth". This shows the mechanism of these tools and on the other side the necessity to put your service up for discussion . How you cause that conversation happen. My presentation content has been posted instantly into TwitterThis afternoon was as a premiere of getting a presentation in realtime into Twitter. The Social Media Presenter (Version "Gruga") is developed by solterbeck.net and enables a speaker to show his presentation on one hand and to tweet content or pictures on the other hand. It shall be part of an "Unified Publishing" suite, we are currently working on. Sven's Tweets on the other Social Media Briefing sessions
About the Social Media Presenter (Version "Gruga")The Social Media Presenter (Version "Gruga") is developed by solterbeck.net and enables a speaker to show his presentation on one hand and to tweet content or pictures on the other hand. It shall be part of an "Unified Publishing" suite, we are currently working on. In this stage Gruga is a prototype. It has been initially launched by Sven Solterbeck's briefing of "How can companies sceptical of social media see the benefits?" at the World Routes Conference (4. October 2011) in Berlin. Minimum System Requirements for "Gruga"
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