Social Media applications (apps) have taken the world by storm, working their way into many aspects of modern life. People take their phones everywhere with them and document their life – travel experiences especially – so airports should ensure it’s easy for passengers to share enjoyable travel experiences.
Many websites now have buttons to share links straight to the user’s social media account, and some companies advertise their products directly through a company page. But now there’s an even better way for airports to utilize social media.
Snapchat recently released sponsored filters by General Electric. These filters only appear when at a certain location, and 50 major airports across the U.S. have special filters for users to utilize. When at JFK, for example, a user can choose to take a “snap” with an overlay of the name of the airport and their flight plans, sharing the experience with their friends and family through this filter.
This is an interesting application of a social media app working hand-in-hand with a company to advertise in a new and novel way, but this can be just the first step into bringing more life to your airport and a better experience to passengers.
Combining an airport’s mobile app with up-to-date social media accounts is the first step to encouraging an ongoing correspondence with your passengers. It gives the ability to have a direct line of communication, especially with frequent fliers who may have valuable feedback for the airport and its operations on the passenger-interaction side. This will remove the need to have expensive surveys done when you can have direct conversations with your customers.
The next step to enhancing the passenger experience is improving the airport’s mobile app. As an example: You could allow passengers to check in for flights on their phones, wave their phone over a machine to scan their boarding pass, use the airport’s mobile app to navigate to their terminal or stores of choice, and then let them easily document the entire experience through social media.
Making the experience as seamless as possible will encourage them to speak positively about your airport, and if they can easily access their accounts and then address the airport’s social media accounts to share the good times – then their friends, family, and followers will pay attention and, hopefully, use your airport as well.
There are certainly a number of benefits that would come from creating a silky smooth experience like above aside from the word-of-mouth advertising you would receive and improved passenger experience for travelers.
Data can be collected from social media, allowing you to generate analytics with the proper systems to see what passengers are saying and thinking about your airport directly. When they are encouraged to post their experiences, it’s more data to read and learn trends from. This gathered data could present you with improvements to be made, or simply let you know what you’re doing right at your airport. A close connection with your passengers is tantamount to positive growth.
Properly utilizing social media alongside a comprehensive airport mobile app can lead to many improvements – not only for improving the relationship with your passengers but how you interact with all passenger on your operations side. It’s time to jump into the heart of the storm, and not let trends pass your airport by.