Introducing the Top 5 nominees in the Revenue category for the 2nd SimpliFlying Awards for Excellence in Social Media.

1. The Best Airlines Driving Revenue through Social Media

2. Introducing the Top 5 Nominees for 2011

3. Nominee 1 AirAsia: “10 Cent Big Sale”

4. Getting the buzz started! AirAsia launched its AirAsia 10 Cent Big Sale on 23 May 2011, but rumours were already rife in social media about an impending sale. coming up. The only unknown factor – how low would they go?

5. “Can you buy a flight with a coin?” A simple call to action with a picture of several coins kicked off as a teaser for fans, asking them to mark their calendars and the question “Can you buy a flight with a coin?” That particular post garnered 681,996 impressions.

6. Driving the excitement on Facebook Using the Facebook “Event Calendar” function, AirAsia also created an event called “AirAsia 10 Cent BIG Sale”, for fans to interact with their own friends and send out invitations for them to stay tuned. Fans were made aware of the sale date and anticipation was built towards 23rd May 2011.

7. Something for everyone! AirAsiacontinued to tease fans with photos of destinations on sale, based on different themes - Sun Sea Surf, Eco Tourism, Shoppers Paradiseetc. essentially saying that there’s something for everyone.

8. Making the booking process really easy! After AirAsia revealed the full list of destination and prices, its “Bargain Hunter 101” note made the booking process even more smooth. Even though it was a midnight sale, the Regional Team was on standby to provide quick response and assistance to fans on all Social Media platforms.

9. Evaluation Apart from the tickets sold, total fans on Facebook increased 90,405 regionally, and the total views of the "teaser" was a whooping 8,703,653 views. Within a week, AirAsia Social Media platforms saw an increase of 94,844 fans without the help of any traditional media.

10. Nominee 2 Malaysia Airlines: “MHBuddy, Mhquick”

11. Book tickets directly from Facebook! The second prong in Malaysia Airlines’ e-commerce suite, MHbuddy is Malaysia Airlines’ ticket office on Facebook. With MHbuddy, socially active travelers can now have a seamless travel experience on Malaysia Airlines without even leaving Facebook, and can spread the words of their travel experience easily. SimpliFlying.com has earlier featured MHBuddy in detail. Read that article here.

12. A truly social booking experience! Socially savvy travelers can book their flights without having to access the Malaysia Airlines website, check-in for their flights, select their seats on the plane and see where their friends are sitting if they are flying on the same flight. In addition, being on the Facebook platform, users of MHbuddy can announce their travel plans to their friends on their Facebook wall, or even find friends who are at their destination.

13. Chrome app gives more options to the social user! With the launch of the MHbuddy app on Facebook, Malaysia Airlines not only has another commerce channel, but also it serves as a bridge, together with other Malaysia Airlines M-commerce solutions such as MHmobile & MHquick Google Chrome app, for users who are social media savvy.

14. Evaluation The key target for MHbuddy is to gain higher yields revenue from the customers. As MHbuddy is a new concept in marketing airline tickets, the early adopters are willing to pay more for their flights tickets as it offers them an easy avenue to make their flight arrangements. Through these early adopters as well, Malaysia Airlines seeks to tap into the social graph of Facebook through the sharing mechanism, which indirectly will bring in more revenue.

15. Nominee 3 Estonian Air: “Auctions, Reverse Auctions and more”

16. As many as FOUR different campaigns! Estonian Air was quite lively in getting together its act for selling tickets and driving revenue through social media. Check out its 4 unique initiatives in the next few slides.

17. 1. Pay as you wish Customers were invited to fly on fixed terms (assigned dates and flights) and pay as much as they deemed the service to be worth. a. A limited number of participants (e.g. 10) were selected during a pre-selection process (posting photos or stories or similar as decided by the airline and collecting “Likes ) and invited to arrive at the ticket office. b. The ticket office held a price presentation of the true cost of the ticket.

18. 2. “Normal” Auction on Facebook An auction was held on Facebook where a fixed-terms ticket is sold to the highest bidder. The ticket was sold when no higher bid was offered within 5 minutes from the last offer. The initial cost of the ticket was 0 €. Participants were allowed to increase bids with 5 € increments. The auctioneer forwarded the winner a link to pay for the booking online. The cycle is subsequently repeated.

19. 3. Reverse Auction on Facebook Reverse Auction was held on Facebook where fixed terms ticket price was lowered by 5€ increment every 5 min. Ticket was sold to the first bidder for the current price. The auctioneer forwarded the winner a link to pay for the booking online. Cycle is then repeated. We did a story on Estonian Air’s unique auction some time ago on SimpliFlying.com. You can read the entire story here.

20. 4. Last minute group fare An announcement was made to sell a round trip ticket for a fixed amount. The Initial number of passengers was 1 and the number is increased by one at the 15 minute interval. The winner was the one who agreed with travel terms that are being offered at the soonest. When no other offers were received closure of the offer is announced. The auctioneer forwards the winner a link to pay for the booking online. The cycle is then repeated.

21. Evaluation The 4 different campaigns added value in the following ways: 1. Engagement level went up dramatically since it was such a unique initiative and everyone wanted a piece of the cake. 2. It showed that there are unique ways of getting rid of distressed inventory.

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23. Nominee 4 Virgin America: “Route launches, Groupon, Chrome app”

24. Toronto route launch using Twitter! One of the earliest examples of route-launches using social media. Virgin America, while launching its Toronto route, offered 50% discount to the first 500 people who booked tickets using their Twitter handles. Those with higher Twitter influence got more perks! Money spent on traditional advertisements: $0

25. Route launches using Groupon After announcing the new Chicago-O'Hare and LAX, SFO routes, VA tasted huge success with a Groupondeal in a matter of a couple hours. The bargain was to pay $7 and get $77 in airfare towards a round-trip purchase on Virgin America’s new routes, and the deal was good on Groupon's Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco sites. Quite obviously the deal was a huge hit. Later, this was repeated successfully, with slight modifications to the price, for the Dallas-Fort Worth routes.

26. Chrome web app helps you fly! To use this app, users input their gender as well as where, when and the kind of trip in order to get suggestions for what to pack and where to go. Users can also select specific traveling preferences to build Trip Inspiration boards based on criteria like Trip Vibe and Must Do activities. They can also pick from a selection of images or add their own images from Picasa to their boards. The app then recommends destinations that correspond to the “mood” of your Inspiration Board.

27. Evaluation Overall, Virgin America’s stellar presence on social media coupled with its innovative ticket giveaways drive revenue not only by clearing excess capacity but also by driving awareness of new routes as well as increased engagement with fans.

28. Nominee 5 airBaltic: “Reindeer Challenge”

29. A unique challenge for airBaltic fliers! In keeping with an old saying: “one who guesses when the antlers of the Reindeer will shed will fly during the next year” airBaltic invited fans and followers to guess when the reindeer at Riga zoo would shed its antlers and win a free round ticket to any of its 70+ destinations.

30. An interactive website was set up! Apart from allowing fans to enter the contest, it also showed a live webcam from the Riga zoo where the reindeer could be seen. Each participant got a discount code for his next booking too!

31. Evaluation The campaign went viral and was widely displayed in TV, radio and printed news among topics from world's hotspots. Since the discount code was valid for bookings between Christmas and New Year, the period when airlines traditionally see decline in bookings, airBaltic was able to generate extra bookings and substantial incremental revenue.

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