The Challenge of Social Media

Over the years online marketing has grown in importance in the airline industry. This media space offers airlines numerous marketing tools, one of the most recent being social media. Social media allows airlines to interact directly with customers via various Internet platforms, and monitor customer opinions and evaluations of services. This exploratory paper studies airlines’ use of social media on Facebook and Twitter for a defined period of time. The paper analyses the content of social media posted by airlines and provides a categorization of the content according to the promotional marketing mix. A netnographic method has been adopted for the examination of these social media platforms. Study findings show that there is poor strategic perspective and a lack of continuity in the use of social media. Results may aid marketing departments in their marketing and social media communication strategies, while at the same time complementing current marketing research