CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT
THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
LESSONS LEARNED FROM SCANDINAVIAN AIRLINES
Christian Kamhaug @ckamhaug
Head of Social Media
SAS Scandinavian Airlines
twitter.com/SAS | facebook.com/SAS | youtube.com/flySAS
HSMAI Europe Marketing Strategy Conference, Oslo, May 24, 2012

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“In the old days, someone might have a
bad customer experience and tell 10
people. But now, with the rise of blogs,
MySpace and Facebook, that person might
be able to tell 10,000 people. This totally
changes the dynamic, and importance, of
customer experience.”
Bruce Temkin, vp/principal analyst at Forrester Research
Source: Forrester “The Customer Experience Index 2007”, http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,43877,00.html,
Brandweek, http://www.brandweek.com/bw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003677228

NEW MEDIA HABITS
• In Norway we now consume media an extra 90
minutes every day compared to a few years ago
• 30% of this time is spent on social media
• Media use is mobile-driven
• EVERYTHING is connected to social media

THE BIG KAHUNA
• More than 850 million users world-wide
• Every 8th person on the planet
• The world’s 3rd biggest country
• More than 9 million active users in Scandinavia
– Norway: 2,8 million monthly users
– Norway: 2 million daily users
• Every 4th Norwegian Facebook-user is mobile!

SOCIAL MEDIA IS IMPORTANT
FACEBOOK IS HUGE
WE NEED TO BE THERE!

SAS SOCIAL MEDIA OBJECTIVES
All communication within the social media arena shall
support SAS business strategy & brand promise.
1. Listen to, Engage and Involve customers to make a better SAS
2. Drive traffic to SAS websites in order to create sales
3. Build lasting relationships through excellent customer service
4. Increase SAS image as a valued partner for all stakeholders
SAS VISION:
TO BE VALUED FOR EXCELLENCE BY ALL STAKEHOLDERS

PLATFORM STRATEGY

CHANNEL STRATEGY
ONE channel per social media platform
Global & local messages
Head of Social Media coordinates channels

PLATFORM EVALUATION
Benefits Costs

PLATFORM EVALUATION
investment Maintenence SAS Dialogue Objectives Do it?
involvement
Blog High High High High 1,2,3,4 wait
Facebook Low Medium High High 1,2,3,4 Yes
Twitter 0,- Medium High High 1,(2),3, 4 Yes
YouTube 0,- Medium/high Low/medium Low 2, 4 Yes
Google+ 0.- Low Low Low 1,2,3, 4 Test
Instagram 0.- Low Low/medium Low 4 Test
Pinterest 0.- Low Low Low 2, 4 Test
Forum 0.- Low/medium High High 1,2,3,4 wait
LinkedIn ? Low Low Low 4 wait

SAS SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS
• facebook.com/SAS
• twitter.com/SAS
• YouTube.com/flySAS
• statigr.am/flySAS
• Bit.ly/SAS-GooglePlus
• pinterest/flySAS etc….

WHAT CAN THEY BE USED FOR?
Facebook Twitter YouTube Google+ Instagram Pinterest
Dialogue   ? ? ? ?
Customer    ?  
service
Sharing     ? 
Sales  ? ? ?  ?
Local messages      
Image/brand      
Competitions      
Recruitment      
Involvment    ?  
Ads      

SOCIAL MEDIA ECO-SYSTEM
Newsletter
flysas.com

SOME ORGANIZATION
HOW WE DO IT @ SAS

WHAT THE CUSTOMER WANTS
• Quick & informed answers
• Availability
• A friendly environment
• To be taken seriously
• Interesting content

SOCIAL MEDIA AS A HUB Corporate
Communications
HR
Operations Cust omer
Contact
Customer Social Marketing
Relations
Media
Online
Product Sales
Development
EuroBonus

FACEBOOK SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING
Internet
Support Day-to-day replies
Corporate
Communications
Status updates
& news
Expert
Team Functional experts

RESOURCE USE AT SAS
• 27 million customers yearly
• 12.000 employees
• Three big home markets
• One of Scandinavia’s strongest brands
• Open 24/7
• Everyone (at least in Scandinavia) knows SAS

RESOURCE USE AT SAS
• 1 FTE Head of Social Media
• About 1/2 FTE at the Call-Center
• Utilizing existing resources
– 10-20 minutes per hour
– 08:00 – 22:00
– Answers most questions within one hour

SAS ON FACEBOOK
• More than 185.000 “fans”
• The largest travel brand on Facebook in the
Nordic region
• What are people talking about?
– EuroBonus
– Bags
– Good experiences with SAS
– Fares
– New destinations

WHAT WE GIVE BACK
• Customer service every day 08:00 – 22:00!
• News & offers
– Global and local offers
• Fun-facts
• Job offers
• Travel tips
• New Scanorama magazine 1st of every month
• Flashback Friday every Friday
• Video & photos from events

LOCAL MESSAGES IN LOCAL LANGUAGES

HOW WE COMMUNICATE
• Consistent messages through all channels
• Folksy & charming
• Try some humor!
• Drop no hooks – bite no hooks
• Answer everything – positive as well as negative
• Write only what you know
– “I don’t know” is ok!
• Be personal and care!

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN YOUR TEAM!
• Wide knowledge-base
• An interest in & understanding of social media
• Wide internal network
• Can-do attitude
• Enthusiasm
• Commercial thinking
• Common sense

HOW TO SUCCEED
USING SOCIAL MEDIA
OR AVOID FAILURE…

TIPS & TRICKS
• Find your “enthusiast”
• Set your goals
• Allocate resources – Facebook is not free
• Find your tone-of-voice & live up to it
• Be among the 1%
– 90% reads / 9% likes, comments & shares / 1% create the content
• Be honest
• Set clear guidelines for your employees
• Analyze & follow up

HOW DO WE MEASURE
SOCIAL MEDIA
THE ELUSIVE ROI…

Social media is like teen sex.
Everyone wants to do it.
No one actually knows how.
When finally done, there is
surprise it's not better.
- Avinash Kaushik
Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google

RETURN ON WHAT?
• What are your goals?
• Non-monetary goals are also valid goals
• Find the KPIs that cover these goals
– Direct sales, sales leads, sign-ups…
– Interactions, reach, likes….
– Brand preference, image, loyality, customer
satisfaction….

SAS FACEBOOK SURVEY 2011
Are you more or less satisfied with SAS after following SAS on Facebook
Much less satisfied
Somewhat less satisfied
Much more satisfied
Same as before
64% MORE satisfied
Somewhat more satisfied
77% are EuroBonus members

DIRECT RETURN ON SOME
• Direct Online Sales
– Based on WebTrends tracking
• Earned Traffic Replacement Cost
– Web traffic from SoMe-sites x Branded Search Cost
• Social Media response Replacement Cost
– Customer Questions Responded x Cost of Calls

TOOLS OF THE TRADE
• Free tools
– Google Alerts, Facebook Insights, Twitter Search
• Low-cost tools
– SocialBakers from USD50/month
– SproutSocial from USD39/month
• Larger systems
– Meltwater Buzz, Vocus, Radian6

NOW WHAT?
TAKING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL…

SOCIAL RELATIONS
• First, you need to Listen
• Then Engage your customers
in social conversations
• Now we Involve our 200.000
friends in social media
• 200.000 fans can’t be wrong
• Let’s use our customers to
make an even better SAS (and
invite them in)

THE LEIA FRAMEWORK
Involve
Engage
Listen

CROWDSOURCING
• Involve your customers in your product
development
• Show them new products early
• Ask their advice
• The customers will feel ownership to Labs
your (or ”their”) product MYSAS IDEA
• Interesting and powersfil markeing
channel for new products
• Sharing

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them.
They went out and happened to things.”
– Leonardo da Vinci
45

SOMMERFLYET2012
• Where shall we fly this summer?
• Suggest a destination!
• 800 suggestions in one week
• More than 180 destinations suggested
• Top 10 destinations went to a vote on
Facbook
• Alanya (GZP) , Turkey was the winner
• Flights start 03JUL 2012
• Will be operated twice a week year-round

DESIGN OUR CUPS
• How to market that SAS re-
introduces free koffe & tea
• 750 designs in one week
• Top 10 went to a vote on
flysas.com/design
• More than 8000 votes
• The winner got EuroBonus-
points and her design on 3
million cups!

EVERYDAY INVOLVEMENT
• Produce interesting content in social media
– Creates discussion, likes, sharing …
• Make all online content sharable
– Use shaing buttons on your site (AddThis.com)
• Talk to your customers where they chose to talk
to you
– Monitor main social media and respond
• Reply to all inquiries – positive as well as
negative!

ASK ME ANYTHING
• chk@sas.se / christian@kamhaug.no
• twitter.com/ckamhaug
• facebook.com/ckamhaug
• no.linkedin.com/in/ckamhaug
• Statigr.am/ckamhaug
• blogg.scanair.no
• slideshare.net/ckamhaug