Akron/Canton Airport (CAK) surpassed 25,000 Facebook fans today, and the airport’s SVP of Fun Kristie Van Auken thanked the fans in her unique, upbeat style with–what else?–a Facebook video.
CAK’s push to 25,000 netted some 7,500 fans in the last three months–pretty impressive for any organization.
It will be interesting to watch how CAK leverages its huge Facebook community. Some folks in the airport social media world question the value of big Facebook fan page numbers. CAK has been–and will continue to be–the preeminent case study for how interaction with a sizable Facebook community can play a role in an airport’s marketing communications strategy.
Meanwhile, today’s announcement by Virgin America leaves little doubt as to its confidence in Facebook as a marketing tactic. Leveraging user-generated content to spotlight and highlight a brand has been done before–and done well–on Facebook. Add the element of judging the top entries to drive even more traffic, and it sounds like Virgin America has a pretty good little campaign on its hands.
Thanks for the shout out, Sean! There is no doubt that gaining a larger fan base will become increasinigly difficult for airport because, as you rightly point out, the big brands inside and outside of the aviation industry are diving deep into social.
Why is big better? Well, we believe that a highly engaged fan base of 25,000 is more valuable than a smaller yet highly engaged fan base. There is some magic when you exceed 20,000 fans- higher newsfeed rankings, bigger response to questions, polls and promotions, and ultimately more brand ambassadors to help us carry the message of low fares/ high experience to travelers in the region.
We will keep growing while keeping our focus on content that really matters to our fans. Ciao!