A recent study measuring the social media presence of 700 brands revealed that of the five top performing companies, four are big names in the travel industry. The top spot went to Battlefield, a video game franchise, with American Airlines close behind. The other three are Lufthansa, Thomson Holidays and Thomas Cook UK.
Social Brands 100 highlighted American Airlines as being the most effective at interacting with their fans on Twitter and Facebook, and as expertly dealing with customer care issues.
A recent live tweet chat on Twitter invited users to ask American Airlines Don Langford, VP of Customer Care, about the new boarding process recently announced by the airline, which allows passengers flying without overhead baggage to receive priority over other groups flying economy class.
The airline is also running a contest and promoting it on Twitter. The winner will be flown to New York at American Airlines cost and will be taken to a taping of Mario Batali's daytime talk show "The Chew", with the highlight of the trip being a meet-and-greet opportunity with the celebrity chef himself. As of May 28th, American Airlines has an impressive 635,595 Facebook fans and 562.637 Twitter followers.
Of the brands that made it onto the Social Brands 100 list, 15 percent are companies within the travel industry. WestJet, a Canadian budget airline, was listed at No. 18 and EasyJet took 29th place. Other notable travel industry companies that made it onto the list are First Choice Holidays at No. 30, Virgin Trains at No. 39, London Midland at No. 42 and Princess Cruises at No. 50.
Millions of interactions were analyzed in March and April 2013, for a 6 week period. Facebook was given 45 percent weight, Twitter 40 percent and the remaining 15 percent weight was given to YouTube.
Many factors went into the analysis, including but not limited to fan growth rate, response time and rate, Twitter mentions, average engagement and post rates, growth of subscriber numbers and ratios of channel dislikes and likes. The full list is available at Socialbrands100.com.
Social Brands – Top 10 List
1/ Battlefield (Entertainment)
2/ American Airlines (Travel)
3/ Lufthansa (Travel)
4/ Thomson Holidays (Travel)
5/ Thomas Cook UK (Travel)
6/ Innocent (FMCG)
7/ Argos (Retail)
8/ SEAT Mexico (Automotive)
9/ Tesco (Retail)
10/ Dr. Martens (Retail)