2010
I am excited to share that I have abandoned this graduate student blog in an effort to start over; to relish in the intrinsic opportunity afforded by social media.
Armed with a wealth of knowledge derived from trial and error, I am looking forward to establishing a more focused blog to add value to a more niche community.
Thank you for your support!
Margery
2009
Calling Upon Existing Infrastructures in Seattle’s Hispanic Community to Propagate a Preventative Early Childhood Caries (ECC) Message
This research proposal will examine how leveraging community intermediaries through digital media can increase awareness of preventative dental health measures among low-income Hispanic mothers of young children in Seattle. The objective of the research is twofold. First, it will support the development of compelling content, including messaging and imagery. Second, it will identify the most effective tools and forums for distributing content.
Our initial research delves into the issue of ECC, the target audience (low-income minority mothers), and the successes of past public health campaigns. Taking these findings into account, we’ll recommend an eight-week pilot program targeting Hispanics in Seattle. The pilot will be framed with focus groups and surveys to formulate the best practices for selecting intermediaries, incentivizing them, and measuring the impact of their efforts on influencing low-income Hispanic mothers in the area.
Ultimately, we’ll illustrate that leveraging existing community infrastructures to disseminate information is the most culturally competent way to increase awareness of preventative dental health measures among Hispanics in Seattle.
Although it would not be appropriate to assume the findings from this pilot research can be generalized to at-risk communities across the country, they can be used as a strong foundation to inform the future development of a broader dental public health campaign.
Research Question
How can leveraging intermediaries through online engagement drive increased awareness of preventative dental health measures among low-income Hispanic mothers in Seattle?
2009
Although I found this Simplifying interview after I had written my paper, “Airlines on the Twitter Radar,” I thought it could serve as a great introduction to it. The following quote within the interview caught my attention because, as I explored in my paper, a handful of airlines are seeking to meet this very goal, despite it not being set by their CEO.
I need to turn around and understand that customer service is not just a cost center, but an opportunity house…I need to use the tools like Twitter and Facebook…and I need to engage parts of my organization in a way that will go around our existing operational processes…My goal as the CEO of an international airline is to use these kinds of social tools to reach people where they are, to give them what they’re asking for, and to forge a new relationship that goes beyond my gates, my dates, and my planes.” –Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs
2009
Airlines on the Twitter Radar
PART I
As a customer –oriented industry, airline carriers should both recognize and act upon the opportunity to use social media to create deeper and more progressive relationships with their increasingly connected and vocal customers.
Social media for many brands, enables them to interact with customers in the communities that they (the customers) feel most in control and comfortable within. In all cases, customers have chosen to use social media to interact with, or comment upon brands, entirely voluntarily, or with only minimal encouragement. This significantly increases the engagement value of brands participating, as it allows them to engage with customers who have “opted-in” by expressing an interest in their brand, or their category at the very least.
Twitter, in particular, is an efficient infrastructure that facilitates brands’ more personalized and direct exchange of real-time information. However, Twitter requires a level of transparency that some brands are unaccustomed to, but all customers require, which challenges the way business is traditionally done….especially for airlines.
Twitter, in its current manifestation, can help airlines to increase customer engagement, brand awareness, and revenue. Specifically, by keeping a pulse on issues as they percolate and interacting with people on a more personal level, airlines can add value to their existing and new customer relationships, even in an environment that can sometimes appear to be very inefficient, due to its seeming one-to-one nature. In a recent interview with Simpliflying, JetBlue said its “ability to answer question[s], direct customers to resources or disseminate information means we have a greater ability to create an informed understanding customer base.” As this paper will cover, many airlines use Twitter as a light CRM tool, but there is an increasingly lucrative opportunity, which @JetBlue is exploring through @JetBlueCheeps, to proactively direct business value through Twitter by selling-off inventory at a discounted rate, quickly filling seats, and advertising new routes. Worth noting is a recent study by Compete, which found that Jetblue and United experienced an increased Twitter conversion lift by heavily promoting low fares on Twitter (cheeps & twares respectively).
The following discussion will first cover the rationale for why airlines should be on Twitter; travelers are online; travelers are participating in social media; travelers will increasingly conduct more transactions online. Secondly, this discussion will delve into the derived norms of a sample of airline brands on Twitter; how particular brands are involved in four key stages of a brand’s social media engagement – listen, educate, act, progress. Third, the discussion will conclude with recommendations for brands using Twitter, a list of handles in the airline category, as well as a couple of predictions.
2009
2009
One of the newer airlines to embrace Twitter, @Air_Baltic, has seemingly not yet solidified its objective(s) for leveraging the mircoblogging platform. Instead, it is experimenting with content to determine how it can add value to the brand’s growing community on Twitter. From @Air_Baltic’s first 124 tweets – captured between March 24, 2009 through July 31st, 2009 – I solidified some ideas* on how airline brands can more confidently begin to build an engaged, brand-appropriate community from it’s first tweet on Twitter.
*These ideas will be covered in the UW Twitter Book.
2009
Qantas Airlines is successfully carving out a niche in the travel category on Twitter, and across the social web, unlike any other airline that I have researched. Through their ever-flourishing “social media experiment” (Qantas Travel Insider), Qantas is connecting people with the information and insights they seek about the various places they are planning to go. From a sample of 100 consecutive tweets from @QFTravelInsider – pulled between July 15th at 10:25 PM and July 30th at 6 PM – the handle seems to be facilitating a community of travelers around the world excited to share their experiences!
2009
Introduction
2009
A sample of 100 consecutive @VirginAmerica tweets (pulled on July 24th at 6:00 p.m & dating back to June 4th at 3:42 p.m.), demonstrated yet another way airline brands are deriving value from the microblogging infrastructure. Worth noting is that the sample of tweets I reviewed includes those interactions generated by @VirginAmerica’s #dayinthecloud promotion and, in turn may or may not precisely reflect the handle’s “normal activity.” Regardless, it does demonstrate the potential of airlines using Twitter as less of a light CRM tool and more of a promotional tool. Taken together with a search of @VirginAmerica, the feed read like it was percolating from a cocktail party; one where a single guest captured the hearts of all the guests (even if it was for novelty sake).
2009
Having only surveyed low-cost carriers on Twitter thus far, I felt compelled to at least review one of their “legacy airline” counterparts. Of course, I had an inclination that they couldn’t compare, but I didn’t realize precisely how disparate their presence on Twitter could be. @UnitedAirlines, for example, has no link from their site, tweets an average of 1-2 times a day, & is all over the board when it comes to content. From a sample of 100 consecutive tweets pulled between June 11 at 10 a.m. and July 24th at 6 p.m., I derived the following insights.
Tweets
