Below the Line

Airline loyalty: buy your perks

Airlines are starting to use the fact that they've cut passenger benefits to their advantage by using them strategically to drive customer behavior.

Delta sent out an e-mail today offering customers who sign up for the Delta Amex card their first checked bag for free. (To read the whole e-mail from Delta, scroll down to the bottom of this post.)

While it might be annoying to earn back this perk that customers once took for granted, for anyone considering flying Delta, there is clear value in accepting this offer. 

   

Note that this is not a win-back promotion; the offer is valid to first-time credit card customers only. Very clever, Delta.

United now lets customers buy some of the elite program benefits previously reserved for those who "earned" them by obtaining Premier status.

 

Now you can buy priority security access, Premier check-in line access, etc. Personally, I just wear my "I'm kind of a big deal" t-shirt and hope they'll recognize my celebrity status. 

 

Let's see if RyanAir can turn going to the toilet into a loyalty perk. I pity the creative team tasked with that one.

A Conversation with TypePad

Last night I had the opportunity to go to the TypePad headquarters for a Meetup event. It was great meeting some of the TypePad team members and other bloggers in a small group setting. 

They talked about some of the new TypePad features. For instance, they've now made it easy for TypePad users to integrate Facebook's "Like" feature in their blogs. The new Like functionality is something all brands should be adding to their sites - it basically does what RSS should have done all along, which is make it "really simple" to subscribe to content.

They've also created a new search widget which bloggers can add to their sites - it will search comments, tags and photos as well as posts, which is extremely useful.

However, the most interesting development for brands is TypePad Conversations. Sparked by the insight that blog posts that end with questions get more comments, TypePad Conversations is "a social media question and answer tool designed to spark engaging conversations around interesting topics which bloggers are actively writing about."

 

The TypePad team writes the questions, which select brands/partners can sponsor, and a cadre of bloggers can post the questions on their blogs, thereby engaging their readers in discussions on relevant topics. TypePad aggregates the answers, so you can essentially get input and engagement from across the web in one place. This solves two problems: it is a way for brands to get their names in front of blog readers without using banner ads, and it saves brands from having to rely on their PR team's database of bloggers or troll the blogosphere to find relevant blogs.

In addition to user engagement, TypePad Conversations has the potential to become a useful market research tool.

 

TypePad Product ManagersMatt Jacobs and Kimmie Nguyen, caught totally by surprise. That's Hubert Nguyen (no relation) from Ubergizmo.com in the background.

The purpose of the TypePad Meetup was not to get marketing people to blog about them - in fact there was only one other marketing person there. However, we did get free pizza and Francis Ford Coppola Wine. The other bloggers ranged from a funny lawyer to a bicycling gourmand.If you want to start a blog with TypePad, please use this link or click on the logo above - I might get a few cents towards my next slice of pizza.

Strategic thinking on PR, IR and media relations in the conversational age

This post about has been stuck in my drafts for ages, but with the benefit of hindsight, I've edited it down to only the parts that are still relevant. I did tweet live at the event, so follow me on Twitter (@ddudgeon) if you're into that sort of thing.

BusinessWire hosted a panel event on PR-driven social media, with panelists from Think Communications, AMD, MH Group, SEGA and Ogilvy 360. Here are some highlights.

Why should brands use social media?

• "Social media helps humanize the brand...Social media gives SEGA a more human face. We're not constantly pushing products at you." - Kellie Parker, SEGA

How should brands incorporate social media into the rest of their communications?

• "Social media can’t live in a vacuum. It needs to be integrated into the rest of your advertising and messaging. Every component should be tied in to the same ROI and strategy to be effective. You can’t just sprinkle it in." - Rachel Polish, Ogilvy 360
• Clients may show resistance to adopting social media. No surprise there, but I was surprised to hear Courtney Barnes, VP at MH Group, dishing on her client United Airlines.* She talked about United's social media steering committee which includes reps from sales, customer support and marketing and complained about needing "17 signoffs". She also mentioned the infamous "United Breaks Guitars" videos and said "Usually it takes a crisis to get big companies to engage".

How do brands manage social media internally?

• SEGA has a “community team”. - Parker
• "People can be trained in advance and still communicate in a way that can be engaging. The richest social media programs have different people/perspectives telling their story." - Polish
• "Empower people with tools – carefully and in context of their brand and corporate culture." - Barnes

What social media guidelines should brands use?

• AMD gives out a social media “license” to employees so they know who can blog about what.They incorporate a traffic light system on blog topics. Red topics = don’t blog, amber = check with social media council, investor relations or legal. The license system made people feel more responsible and employees get a bit of training. - Ruth Cotter, AMD
• "The policy should be mapped towards the corporate culture." - Barnes
• Social media guidelines are publicly available from: IBM, Coast Guard, Intel, Cisco. - Polish
• "SEGA doesn't have a social media policy. Our policy is 'don't do it'. Only the social media team should be using social channels." - Parker

Some quick tips:

• Plan for the worst in advance.Go through scenarios.Plan for recalls. - Polish
• On secrecy: Think before you post, think again, and then go ask someone. - Parker
• On damage control: Maximum exposure, minimum delay to move the conversation along. - Polish
• On using Twitter for customer service: Customer service complaints go top of Twitter search results. Take conversations offline. - Barnes

Parker also shared SEGA's success story on Twitter. Every Friday, they have a giveaway on Twitter which started "just to get rid of old swag." Now the giveaway is part of their plan; they award six prizes per week. As a result, they get more followers on Fridays than any other day of the week - about 1,000 new followers every Friday.

*Full disclosure: United is a former client.