Social Media Listening is what brands do when they monitor their hashtags, handles and mentions on social media. It is their way of conversing with the customer. Personally, social media listening is one of my favourite processes in a marketing effort, and I like talking about it. In my early days studying digital marketing, social media listening was not a priority, and brands were beginning to realize its importance. I wrote this article in 2018 when I learned about three airline industry examples. These campaigns still serve as a lesson in paying attention to what your customer is saying about your business.
KLM Happy to Help – Customer Service
By their admission, KLM is proud of their customer service, but you have to fly KLM to experience it. In 2014, KLM decided to help out everyone, even people who don’t fly KLM. An ingenious idea to give people a flavour of their customer service. How was this accomplished? Read on!
KLM set up a 24/7 Happy to Help Control Center for a week-long campaign at the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. They tracked down travellers who needed help by constantly scamming Twitter for hundreds of travel-related search words. The KLM staff could solve most problems in a tweet, whereas some require more attention than others.
- Want to visit the Statue of Liberty – a speedboat taxi was ready in the Hudson River, NYC, to beat the traffic
- Cars for picking up passports
- A motorbike to track down missing items
- Giving a wake-up call to passengers on early flights
- Providing comfy beds to passengers stuck overnight at the airport
- For one customer, they sang a lullaby (I mean, seriously)
- A speed tour of Amsterdam for people who had long halts at the airport
- A honeymoon transfer for a newly married couple
- and much more… a campaign executed on a global scale
One would wonder, what was the point of all this? Why go to such lengths? They weren’t even getting paid for it. On the contrary, it was a massive investment of time and money, not to mention the effort involved. Here’s why:
In one week, they helped thousands of people fly other airlines worldwide. Millions of people online were following what they were doing. If any of the 8-9 points happened to you, wouldn’t you tell someone about it? If you engaged with the brand on Twitter, your friends would come to know about it. If you were stuck overnight at the airport and the ground staff gave you a bed to sleep in and sent you a lullaby (I can’t get over this one), you are bound to post about it on your social profiles with #happytohelp for the world to see. That’s publicity, brand awareness, and engagement for KLM. When you tell someone about this or when someone sees this happening, they are going to feel like flying KLM for their next trip; I know I do.
Go above and beyond for others, do something good, and something good will come to you in return (a subtle philosophical point made not-so-subtle here!). If you go on to KLM’s YouTube Channel, you will find one-to two-minute videos of people they helped. When people see those videos, they engage on YouTube, and people then talk about those videos on other platforms.
KLM Surprise – Social Listening
Imagine you are sitting at the airport, waiting for the boarding announcement for your flight. You are waiting and waiting some more for the flight to take off. You start to look for ways to kill time, trying to fight the increasing boredom while you wait (Be honest, how bored are you waiting for me to get to the point). Then, someone taps on your shoulder and gives you a little package. Has this ever happened?
KLM decided to experiment to see whether it could use social media to make its passengers feel special and make it a more likable airline.
KLM found passengers who had checked in using one of their Foursquare locations or left a message via Twitter. The second step was to search their social profiles and get to know them to purchase a personalized gift item for them. The third step was to find them at the airport and deliver the gift.
The gifts were small items that people would appreciate and want to use. KLM staff discussed the possible options and purchased one of them. They found the people at the airports they checked in across the globe and approached them. They talked to the person about where they were going and told the people about the gift they were about to receive from KLM.
They executed the campaign over several weeks. Like with KLM Happy to Help, it is a great way to boost engagement via Twitter and YouTube. People will post about this on their profiles; their friends will get to see that and engage with KLM themselves. That’s audience expansion which inevitably results in more people flying with KLM.
Social listening is the one thing that stands out about this campaign. It is good to know that companies engage with the posts written by people; it shows that a brand cares about the people it’s serving. KLM made an effort and took the time to get close to the people and make them feel special.
WestJet Christmas Miracle: Making Special Days Extra Special
This one is too good for me personally. Here’s why: It’s about making people’s wishes come true. It makes them feel special. The thought behind this campaign is beautiful. I won’t say much, watch this video, and you will know why.
A few things about this social media listening campaign are the colour of the Santa hats, and St. Nick himself is that of the airline. The idea is absolutely genius. Linking your colours with Santa Claus makes it memorable because everyone knows Santa. The timing of this campaign is such that the theme and mood are festive; it celebrates the spirit of Christmas so everyone can join in. Most importantly, it is about making your customers feel special and giving them an experience they will remember for a long time.
Many things have to align to bring about such campaigns. A crazy and daring marketing department with the guts to come up with something like this and push it through the company, a social media savvy CEO who understands the intent, is willing to take the risk for such a massive investment and a supportive crew ready for this behemoth of an undertaking. All of them, united by a strong belief in the brand you represent, come together and make beautiful things happen.