top 10 airports on social media - the 2012 edition

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Top 10 Airports on Social Media The 2012 Edition

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Case-study 1Helsinki Airport: Quality Hunters 2

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A famous initiative

Quality hunters is perhaps the most well known example of airport crowdsourcing and it’s not hard to understand why, especially looking at the incredible number of initiatives that it helped generate.

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How it works

The idea behind this initiative is a simple one: improve the airport experience not only FOR customers but WITH the customers. To do so the airport selected a group of “quality hunters” and gave each of them the task of monitoring a specific area of improvement.



The Book Swap

One of the most eye catching initiatives that came out of this crowdsourcing effort is the Helsinki Airport book swap that was designed by the quality hunters team using Pinterest as a source of inspiration and place for debate.



There’s much more

However the book swap but it is by no means the only result of this initiative. The over 260 Ideas submitted helped improve all areas of the airport ranging from security screening to vegetarian meals.


Case-study 2Dublin Airport: Dubliners


Location Location Location

Location is an extremely important element for airports as their success is based entirely on the number of people travelling to and from them. For this reason Dublin airport decided to embrace its town’s identity by supporting a theatrical adaptation of James Joyce’s Dubliners at the Dublin Theater Festival.

But it did so with a twist, that involved 3 major social networks: Twitter, Pinterest and SoundCloud.



A brand reinforcement exercise

The idea behind this campaign was not only the promotion of the event but the strengthening of the town’s image and building links between the airport and its local community.

The airport started by giving away 150 copies of the famous James Joyce novel by leaving 5 books per day in various spots around the airport with a post-it note saying “take me, I’m free”.



Share to win

Passengers who found the books were invited to share pictures of where they took the book during their travels. The images would then be re-shared by the airport trough its Pinterest, and Twitter accounts thus raising awareness not only of the airport and its town but also of the destinations that could be reached.



Sounds

Furthermore, with a rather unusual but innovative idea, the airport added a new dimension to its campaign by including sound and regularly sharing little “audio vignettes” on SoundCloud in which actors read short extracts of the book.


Case-study 3Gatwick Airport


A Sound Idea

Another innovative airport that decided to leverage SoundCloud was Gatwick Airport that used this platform as a tool to keep its youngest travelers busy.

As a way to keep the stress levels of parents (and nearby travelers) low, the airport found a creative way to share audio-stories and keep children busy while they waited.



Reaching out to authors

The Airport asked children’s authors to submit their stories through a dedicated e-mail address. Once filtered, those who are voted as the best are uploaded on the airport’s SoundCloud account on an ongoing basis. Each week a new story is voted for and recorded.



A welcome initiative

Visitors at the airport are greeted by signs like the one shown here that provide a QR code that re-directs to the airport’s SoundCloud account.

So far 14 stories have been published in the “Gatwick Fairytales” collection, ranging from under a minute to over half an hour in length.

The most popular track has been played over 200 times.


Case-study 4San Diego: A Pinteresting airport


Pinterest

In previous articles we’ve highlighted how Pinterest has a very good potential as destination marketing platform, and have suggested how airlines could be using it to promote themselves. We’ve now found an airport that has decided to leverage it to reinforce its image as a great destination.



Positive image

Through Pinterest the airport was able to portray the best aspects of its home town and the destination its serves, encouraging people to share.



Blogging

SAN also used Pinterest as a way to promote posts from its award-winning employees’ blog and other local bloggers.


Case-study 5Amsterdam Schiphol: Share your Food


Restaurants

Large airports like Amsterdam Schiphol know all too well how important the restaurants inside their halls are. They provide both a source of revenue for the airport and keep waiting passengers well-fed and busy.



Social Responsibility

However they also know how eager these restaurants are to get noticed, as well as the importance of being seen as an airport that takes care of people all over the world, especially those who are most in need.



A perfect exchange

The airport designed a neat campaign where users could share a meal from their favorite airport restaurant on Facebook, and in exchange the restaurant would donate a meal to a child in need (via Unicef)

In this win-win solution:• The restaurants raise awareness of their food

• Users who share feel good for doing a good thing,

•The airport gets a positive brand association and

•Children in need are helped.


Case-study 6Singapore Changi: via Singapore


Neither origin nor destination

In the case of some airports like Singapore Changi, being a point of origin and destination for travelers is often just part of the story as a large proportion of their traffic (and earnings) comes from transit traffic.



Transit traffic

Singapore’s Changi Airport created a website dedicated exclusively to passengers who pass through Singapore on their way to other destinations.



The perfect place to stop

The site provides plenty of resources, travel guides and information for those travelling in the region as well as portraying the airport as the ideal transit place.


Case-study 7Kansas City Airport


Car Vs PlaneCan a car be faster than a plane? At Kansas City Airport they realized that quite a few people must think so and hence choose to drive to certain short-haul destination instead of flying. To find out the truth they decided to set up a challenge…



Car dealership vs. Social Savvy airline

With the cooperation of a local car dealership for the “car team” and a social savvy airline (Southwest Airlines) for the “plane team” the airport set up the race between two iconic buildings of Missouri 249 miles apart.

The rules were simple:The car could not speed and the plane passenger had to be at the airport at least 1h before the flight and only use public transport.



Buzz and victory

In the end the plane-team won and in the process the airport gained over 100,000 impressions, 200+ direct mentions, 150+ followers and a considerable amount of buzz, including TV coverage on arrival.


Case-study 8Melbourne Airport: @MelbFlightDeals


Deal curators

For those airports that wish to attract more direct traffic an interesting tactic is that of becoming “deal curators” by offering users the chance to find the lowest rates to and from the airport all in one place. This is exactly what Melbourne airport does on the @MelbFlightDeals twitter handle.



There’s more

The airport also provides the same service on its website reinforcing it with a series of dedicated travel tools.


Case-study 9Warsaw Airport


An Innovative Airport

As surprising as it may sound to some, one of the best social media airports in Europe is not one of the continent’s major hubs but rather a more modest but enthusiastic airport: Chopin Airport of Warsaw, Poland



Multi platform approach

This airport has keenly started using a variety of platforms ranging from Facebook to Pinterest and Google Plus, but always kept a clear focus and strategy making its efforts particularly successful.



Crisis management

The airport also demonstrated exceptional crisis management capabilities when a LOT 767 landed wheels up, blocking all the airport’s flights and attracting considerable media and public attention.


Case-study 10 Aberdeen Airport


Small but focused

Another airport that was able to achieve good results by keeping its strategy focused has been the Scottish airport of Aberdeen



The Cloud that started it all Like many airports Aberdeen started using social media to communicate with passengers during the famous Icelandic ash crisis that closed most of Europe’s airspace for days.



Quick replies and training

Since then the airport has scaled its efforts to communicate with its passengers and even trained their duty managers to respond out of hours to make sure the airport’s users get an almost immediate reply on social media.


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top 10 airports on social media - the 2012 edition

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