FreshNetworks Blog

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Airports play an important role in many travel plans. Few people will feel that they are choosing and buying services from airports as they probably travel through an airport because the cheapest or most convenient flight goes through there. In fact in many cases the best airports are either those that make your experience so fast and efficient that you don’t need to spend much time there, or those that make you feel that you aren’t just waiting for a plane whilst you are there.

For any airport using social media it is important to have a very clear understanding of what they are trying to achieve and who they are communicating with, and what they want to talk about. Bad use of Twitter would be trying to engage too many different types of stakeholder about too many different types of topic with no clear benefit or reason for the airport to be using Twitter at all. Good is a clear, focused strategy. Perhaps engaging those who are en route to the airport or who are already there – making their journeys simpler and easier. Or maybe engaging those who are planning trips to help them with information about the area as well as about passing through the airport.

To analyse the success of UK airports on Twitter we have created a ranking of UK airports on Twitter using PeerIndex – which ranks how effective Twitter accounts are at engaging and influencing people in a meaningful way. There is one clear winner in this ranking: Manchester Airport. And taking a look at their Twitter account it is easy to see why. They are focused on engaging travellers and helping them to navigate their way through the airport as efficiently as possible. They answer questions on arrivals and departures, on how to get help at the airport and on what you will find when you are there. It serves, in effect, as a customer service and FAQ tool helping people to make the most of the time they spend at Manchester airport before and after their flight. It is perhaps this focus and real engagement that makes them so successful and (currently) the leader in our ranking.

UK Airports on Twitter: Ranking

The world of social media has changed dramatically in the four years since the last world cup – back then, MySpace was the largest social network in North America with more than 110 million active monthly users,  Facebook had a mere 50 million active users and Twitter hadn’t even launched.

Move forward to the 2011 Rugby World Cup kicked off and while New Zealand are again the heavy favourites, as was the case four years ago, things are very different in the world of social media.

At the last count, Facebook had over 750 million active users, which, as I saw in an interesting infographic, would make it the third largest country in the world. Twitter has reached 100 million active users (although there are approx. 200 million registered accounts) and MySpace, which at its peak had 125 million active users, now has around 63 million.

Social media stats about the rugby world cup discussion so far:

Image and data source: Ubervu

Since the start of the rugby world cup last Friday there have been almost 32,000 mentions of “RWC” or “Rugby World Cup” on social media sites – unsurprising 71% of these from men. The potential total impressions has been almost 24m to date.

The majority of these (almost 24,000) featured on Twitter, with Facebook discussion coming in second. It’s important to keep in mind though that this is only the content from Facebook that people have made publicly available.

Different Twitter policies for teams at the rugby world cup 2011:

Graham Henry, the New Zealand head coach, has decided to take a simple approach to preventing players from causing gaffes on Twitter by banning them from using the platform for the duration of the tournament:

“We haven’t had a policy up till now,” he said. “We’ve just asked them to make good decisions about that and, in the All Blacks camp, most of the time, they’ve made good decisions. But, at Rugby World Cup time, zilch.”

Meanwhile, the England team has not been banned from using Twitter, but they have been given some simple guidelines, and told to “think before they tweet”. Toby Flood, the England player was asked about the instructions given to the team and said:

“You just use your common sense. Don’t write anything that will become controversial or daft, and I think that’s the safest way to be.”

Of course, while sports stars and celebrities have much higher followings than the average person, the principles are the same for everyone. Back in January, O2 who sponsor a number of international rugby teams, including England, wrote a tongue-in-cheek piece on the O2 blog titled ‘5 Twitter Commandments for famous rugby players’.

And what about the numerous, non-celebrity social media users and what they discuss on social media during the rugby world cup?

The message for everyone should be the same – you are accountable for your actions, or in this case Tweets or comments on social media. The chances are that your boss will be following you, as well as some of your clients, so like the England rugby team have been warned, always “think before you tweet”.

Image courtesy of Ag Knowlogy

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric developed by Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company, and Satmetrix.

NPS is calculated by asking customers a single question, eg,”How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” and asking them to rate their answer between 1-10, where 10 is “extremely likely” and 0 is “not at all likely”.

Based on their response, customers are categorized into one of three groups: Promoters (9–10 rating), Passives (7–8 rating), and Detractors (0–6 rating). The percentage of Detractors is then subtracted from the percentage of Promoters to obtain a Net Promoter Score.

Here are a few ways in which social media could potentially improve your Net Promoter Score:

1. Customer Service

The obvious option – use social media channels as an additional opportunity to assist customers and thus increase satisfaction. Twitter is a “quick win” as a social media customer service channel and it should be manned, monitored and used by dedicated members of your customer service team.

2. Expectation management

Improve your chances of delivering against expectations by acquiring the ‘right’ customers and ensuring they are completely aware about what your product or services can do for them. Encouraging more and better (e.g. video) reviews will help this. For example, if you’re an e-commerce business you could help reduce the number of (costly) returned orders thanks to the better expectation setting that comes from unadulterated customer reviews.

3. Insight

NPS should not be just about the number; understanding what turns off detractors and what makes promoters rave about you is where the real value lies. Both social media monitoring and market research online communities (MROCs) can be useful for diving deeper into your perceived strengths and what you need to improve on. The more you can encourage feedback through an ongoing, two-way conversation, the better understanding you will have about how customers perceive your business and what you need to change.

4. Enhanced connection with an organisation

Social media gives customers an opportunity to feel directly connected to the heart of the business. With this in mind, you could consider running a closed community of promoters, with a high NPS,  for your brand. This gives advocates the chance to hang out with other advocates and like-minded people in their own space. As a result, they’ll feel like insiders and could increase enthusiasm for your brand as well as potentially seeing an increase in their aggregate NPS score too.

5. Convert detractors into promoters

Use social media monitoring to pick out detractors and work to improve their perception of your brand. Develop a proper social media management plan to focus on this specific group and tailor procedures and content to help turn them from detractors into passives or promoters.

This morning I presented on the importance of remembering the people involved in social media – who you are engaging and what they want from you. When brands struggle on Facebook or Twitter it is usually because they haven’t thought through what is in it for the people they are engaging. It is easy as a brand to decide how you want to use social media, and what you want people to do. It is less easy, but more important, to consider what the people you are engaging want to do.

I decided to show this through a simple story – that of Mary (a mum) and Jack (who works in marketing for a large FMCG firm). Jack wants to sell a new breakfast cereal to Mary and thinks that social media isn’t the answer. But he has made a big mistake…

The story is simple but it is one many brands can learn from – understand the motivations, needs and interests of the people you are looking to engage. If you don’t they probably won’t want to follow or Like you.

Marmite, a friend of Park Bench

In general we don’t usually use our blog for self-promotion, but we’re proud to announce that Park Bench, the Facebook pet community we manage on behalf of  veterinary services provider Vets Now, is the UK’s third most engaging Facebook page.

According to a recent report by social media analytics company Social Bakers, Park Bench has an impressive engagement rate of 0.57% and is also the 9th most active page in the UK too.

We’re so proud that in just 6 months, with a member base of zero and an unknown brand name, we’ve taken on and beaten some of the big household names in terms of engagement on Facebook and we now have a continually growing, active  membership base of over 43,000 fans.

So what’s behind our success? Here are some top tips from our social media management team:

Learn which content works and doesn’t work

Trial and test different types of content to assess what your target audience is most likely to engage with. In the case of Park Bench, the most effective content relates to specific dog breeds as dog owners can directly relate to this themselves.

It’s also important to include a a rich content mix. Don’t just keep uploading text, pics or videos links consecutively; mix it up a bit.

Think about tone of voice

Think about the tone of voice you are using to engage with your audience. For Park Bench, we’ve found that colloquial language works best, and has been a definite driver in helping to increase engagement levels.

Use location targeting

Although Park Bench has a nation-wide appeal, we also create content that focuses on our 10 most popular areas of the country. This helps to encourage discussions around topics that are hyper-relevant.

We used Facebook insights to identify the top 10 areas where most of our fans live.

Know your demographic

For Park Bench, we know our audience is mostly made up of women aged between 35-45 years old. You need to work out the demographic of your audience and when they’re most active online.

Offer a unique proposition

Part of Park Bench’s appeal is that we offer weekly “Ask a Vet” sessions. This is a unique proposition and no other Facebook community offers this service. Park Bench community members can ask professional vets a host of questions relating to the health and well-being of their dog. This helps to encourage return visits as well as increasing engagement throughout the week, not just on the “Ask a Vet” day itself, as members can access this content from the Facebook page if and when needed.

Create community advocacy

Identify people who are the most active and spend time getting to know them and personally engaging with them. Park Bench advocates are a lovely bunch, so for us this is really easy to do and it’s a genuine pleasure communicating with them on a regular basis.