Alberta Business Marketing

United Airlines is becoming the friendly skies – sort of

I recently return from a trip to Phoenix, Arizona and during my travels on United Airlines which I normally travel because I collect Aeroplan points and since I am a Star Alliance Gold member it just makes sense for me to travel on the airlines that allow me to collect points and keep my status. I actually enjoy the lounges at the airports and I noticed this time around that United is really trying to become friendly.  I made this observation a few times during my travel.

During this trip United started advertising their “connect to us on Twitter” as part of their in-flight entertainment system and really encouraging people to connect with them on Twitter.  Kudos to you United. United may now be understanding the importance of offering other ways to connect with their customers especially in our socially connected world in which we live in today.

It can also be a brand reputation activity as well.

Good start with Twitter, United

No #Fail from me, still have work to do though

However, does the big bloated company culture spill over to the social media space? It is no secret and something that is not unique to United, all big firms suffer from a certain degree of being bloated.  I would guess the older corporate culture still plays an important role and it really doesn’t matter what the tool is. If your firm has problems returning a phone call, replying to an email or offer poor customer service when dealing face-to-face with people, what makes you think you can reply better with Twitter?

Corporate culture still plays an important role. When I arrived in Phoenix I tweeted about my great trip to Sky Harbor via Denver but then realized my suitcase was still in Denver after my first tweet on the pleasurable trip I was on.  United Airlines never did retweet my good comment about my experience nor did they get back to me on my tweet about my bag not making it to Phoenix.

Let me make this clear, the staff at Sky Harbor were awesome in dealing with my lost luggage.  No complaints what so ever, I am just focusing on the culture around social technologies and if you are going to use them you need to embrace the culture.

United is on the right track, just need some tweaks.

Tags: Aeroplan, Airline, Arizona, denver, Open Travel Alliance, Phoenix, Sky Harbor, social media space, social technologies, Star Alliance, Star Alliance Gold, Stuart's ramblings, travel, Tweet, Twitter, Twitter Inc, UAL Corporation, United Airlines, World Wide Web
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Hello from Phoenix, Arizona

This evening I managed to invest some time with HTG1 and the HTG Advisory Council here in the Valley of the Sun, Phoenix, Arizona.  Tonight is a sad night for me.  It was my official last social engagement as a member of Heartland Tech Groups (HTG) and the HTG Advisory Council.  A great bunch of awesome guys, however with my new career direction in the Calgary Search Engine Optimization and Social Media world. it is unfortunate but I am no longer a fit for HTG, as a member at least.  There maybe something else we can figure out, hopefully.

Canada’s Social Media Landscape

Yesterday I mentioned the Social Landscape and what I feel are contributors to the overall landscape in our socially connected online world that we live in.  A critically important online world that can’t be overlooked any longer by business, families and anyone else who is stuck in a log cabin up north totally disconnect from all human interaction.

Many of us as professionals in social media, throw the words “social media” around pretty loosely.  But really what is social media?  Many of my peers including myself have different descriptions for social media and as a consultant serving the Calgary community I may just continue to use it, out of context in my mind, because that is what people know.

In my opinion, Social Media is simply the art of communicating, the art of delivering the message to a reader, the crafting of the message for people to view, and the reaction to the original message or posting.  Print media is the same thing, the newspaper you read is the tool for reading print media.  I can get the message in a magazine, paper or even a cocktail napkin.  In our online world, Facebook is just a tool for you to read social (online) media.  I hope this make sense to many of you.

Social media is the message, Facebook is the tool, and social networking is the art of creating mutual win-win online relationships and social currency is the “go giver” of the online world.  Like I said, I hope this makes sense to many of you.

Here is another example.  If you are a publicly traded firm in Canada and need to combat some negative press coverage in the print media world, you can turn to social media to help share your side of the story to reach your audience.  Different tools and perhaps the same message.  Twitter can be a service or tool for you to get your word out (the media).

Love to hear what you all think on the this topic.  This is my first leg of what I can the “Social Landscape”.

Tags: Arizona, Calgary, canada, collaboration, Consultant, Facebook, Facebook Inc, heartland tech groups, HTG Advisory Council, HTG1, important online world, member at least, mutual win-win online relationships, Online social networking, online world, Phoenix, print media, print media world, search engine, Social information processing, social media, Social Media Ventures Inc, Social network service, social networking, Technology/Internet, Twitter Inc, World Wide Web
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