By: Marcus Chhan (Guest Blogger)
MALAYSIA AIRLINES FACEBOOK TWITTER BLOGS DIGITAL
• The MAS digital journey from early 2008
• Successful integration of blogs, Facebook, and Twitter with brand
• Providing value propositions to customers
Malaysia - The rise of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) in the digital realm over the last one and half years is impressive but also demonstrates to marketers the mindset of today's consumer who is ever-craving for real brand engagement.
In early 2008, MAS launched its employee blog Living Malaysian Hospitality (LMH) with 30 employee bloggers and today it has a pool of over 150 employee bloggers - not including the customers and guest bloggers who write about Malaysia Hospitality (MH) experiences.
"Entries which garner high interest include those by our cabin crew, destination stories and behind-the-scene pieces," Malaysia Airlines senior general manager of communications, Indira Nair, said.
Blog entries are now posted on a daily basis and the content is used to engage with MAS Facebook and Twitter followers.
In March 2009, the airlines launched the Malaysia Airlines Travel (MAT) fan page on Facebook and MASTravel on Twitter, in a bid to engage with customers aged between 20 and 35. Today, MAT has over 13,500 fans while Twitter is used as a support mechanism for Facebook and LMH initiatives.
Nair said the MAT activities go beyond product updates and are driven by actively engaging with its audience.
"Every activity is tracked, evaluated and learning’s are captured and built into future activities. Whilst the size of the group is important - we need to have a sizeable base to start with - having an active community is even more important," she said.
According to MAS research, MAT has driven more than 37,000 unique visitors to Malaysiaairlines.com which represents 16% of the website's total visitor count for the last five months (1 March to 17 August 2009).
"These two platforms [Facebook and Twitter] are not means for hard sell. It's meant to build awareness and connectivity with Malaysia Airlines," Nair said.
MAS do around four to five entries a day on Facebook and Twitter and both initiatives are supported by a blogger engagement programme. In mid-August, the company organized a plane spotting session for its bloggers and Facebook fans.
"To date, we have done tours of our inflight kitchen, the flight simulator, a walkabout of the cabin crew training and also a walkabout of our Engineering & Maintenance facilities," Nair said.
"Their stories provide a glimpse into the array of services and value we provide from their perspective," she said.
Fleishman-Hillard Malaysia, which won the Malaysia Airlines digital influence brief in December 2008, told A+M that the carrier is looking at value propositions rather than being fixated on lowest pricing.
Malaysian Airlines also extended its digital presence to brands MASGrads (for students aged 12 years and above) and MASExpat (for expatriates) to keep different target audiences updated on specific deals. |