Angry with an airline? Don’t phone, tweet

Not so long ago, a man on a plane was served a sandwich he didn’t like. He used Twitter – the real-time personal news feed, if you didn’t know – to alert the world to his displeasure. An airline employee on the ground saw the tweet, relayed the message to a flight attendant who minutes later asked the man what could be done to assuage his disappointment.

Welcome to travel 2012 style, if you’re doing it right.

Once seemingly impenetrable behemoths, airlines have become remarkably accessible thanks to social media, especially in the real-time world of Twitter. Most, if not all, airlines have Twitter feeds that allow customers to converse and, more important, solve problems in real time, whether for a large issue (stranded in an airport) or small (a lousy sandwich).

Stuart Greif, vice president of global travel for J.D. Power and Associates, said the sandwich story, which he said he discussed with an executive of the airline involved, shows social media’s benefits for the travelers who are savvy enough to use them.

“If a customer has a problem, the fastest way to address it has become social media,” Greif said. “Younger generations might never call into a call center. They might always go online and address these things in real time.”

Another platform could one day overtake Twitter, but for now it is the primary tool for real-time reaction from an industry that triggers anxiety and frustration like few others. Go to any of the major airlines’ Twitter feeds, and you will see (often entertaining) exchanges with frustrated passengers.

“We consider Twitter the canary in the coal mine,” said Morgan Johnston, JetBlue‘s social media strategist. “It’s not always fun to be called out publicly, but if there’s something really wrong with our operation, it shows up a lot faster, and we’re able to fix it.”Among the most aggressive Twitter users has been American Airlines, which has sent more messages than any of its competitors and which recently expanded its Twitter coverage from 6am to midnight, up from 7 am to 8pm. The ultimate goal is staffing 24 hours a day, as several other airlines already do.

In our region, Qantas leads the way with 17,000 tweets published, though its social media strategy has occasionally backfired.

via Angry with an airline? Don’t phone, tweet.

Strange Random Anger Quote:

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” ― Ambrose Bierce

Related articles

• FlyRight Helps Travelers Get Real-Time Customer Service from Airlines
• Twitter ‘alerted NBC to Guy Adams’ critical tweets
• Tweets, texts disrupt Olympic cycling coverage
• Olympic Viewing: NBC Critics Loud on Social Media
• 4 Twitter Mistakes: Don’t Do What These Brands Did
• How Important is Response Time to Your Customers on Twitter and Facebook?

Ready or Not, Time to Share More – NYTimes.com

Just when you thought you had finally figured out Facebook once and for all, here comes a whole new way to spend all your time tinkering with it. Over the next few weeks, every one of Facebook’s nearly one billion members will have their profile pages forcibly updated to an ambitious new layout that Facebook calls Timeline.

If you are a Facebook user, your page may not have Timeline yet. But once you have been upgraded, which will be soon, there will be no going back. So you might as well learn how it works.

Previously, Facebook’s profiles consisted of a single page of recent status updates. Now, your Timeline will present a navigable index of every single update and post you have ever made, should you wish to allow it. (If you don’t have Timeline yet and want to turn it on, you can do so facebook.com/timeline.)

Moreover, you can extend your Timeline to stretch back in time, adding additional posts dating to your birth, or even before. An interactive map plots the locations to which your posts are pegged. The company’s goal is simple: Get people to use Facebook to tell their life stories, and to mix real-world events — photos, videos, personal stories — with automated updates posted by apps.

If you’re eager to fashion the ultimate Timeline, there are a few tricks you should know.

via Ready or Not, Time to Share More – NYTimes.com.

Strange Random Facebook Quote:

“(With) a lot of these new technologies, there’s this element of addiction whether it’s cell phones or checking your e-mail or blog. Last year, everywhere I went, like cafes and wireless nodes, everyone was checking their Facebook, posting in their Facebook groups and e-mailing.” – David Silver

Related articles

• Ready or Not, Time to Share More (nytimes.com)
• 10 Facebook Page Timeline Cover Examples | #Facebook #socialmedia (sanajt.wordpress.com)
• Facebook’s Timeline for Pages: Resources (annehornyak.com)
• New York Times gets new-look Facebook page with timeline of 160-year history (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• 5 Facebook Timeline Tips for Companies (christopherspenn.com)
• Facebook Timeline for Pages Launches, TabSite Supports New Timeline App Tab Width of 810 Pixels (prweb.com)
• Top Tips to Get You Up and Running on Facebook’s new Timeline for Brand Pages (lipsticking.com)
• 5 Things Brands Need to Know Now about Facebook Timeline (venpop.com)
• Images and Sizes for the New Timeline Layout on Facebook Pages (kimwoodbridge.com)
• Marketing Your Business With a Facebook Page? Better Get Ready for Timeline! (nightdayproductions.com)

The Like Log Study

What sites, topics and stories are most popular across social networks? “The Like Log Study” is a collection of infographics about news industry and content demand.

Strange Random Network Quote:

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” – Jane Howard

Related articles

• Twitter: The (Un)Social Network? (epiphanysolutions.co.uk)
• We Love Facebook! The Hardcore Facts In An Infographic (mindjumpers.com)
• Hackers hunt prey on smartphones, Facebook (talesfromthelou.wordpress.com)
• How to Log in to Facebook (lockergnome.com)
• Future of social networks: Will Facebook remain the one network to rule them all? (slate.com)
• Social Networking (designerboy18.wordpress.com)
• Google Takes Social Search to the Next Level with +1 (hubspot.com)

LiveGo – your online life, all in one place!

LiveGo is a new service (still in beta, like most Web 2.0 services worth their salt) designed to help people like us with more online accounts than we care to mention. No more information overload or wishing there were 25 hours in a day; LiveGo lets you sign in using any of 6 different services, which means they don’t ask you to make ANOTHER password and also that they don’t keep any of your information.

What you get is something like this. On the left you have your chosen services, such as Twitter, GMail, Facebook and as you click on them, the results update in the centre pane, where you can manage your account, add content and so on.

Over on the right, there’s a column for instant messaging that includes Gtalk, MSN, Facebook, AIM and a few others to boot. All in all, it’s easy to use and very convenient and the magic word – FREE!

 

Strange Random Information Quote:

“The information in the world doubles everyday. What they don’t tell us,is that our wisdom is cut in half at the same time.” – Joey Novick

Related articles

• SocialGO Leads the Next Wave of Social Networks with More Personalised Custom Builds (prweb.com)
• Online IM service MessengerFX reborn as a social platform called LiveGO (eu.techcrunch.com)
• WhereDoYouGo Heatmaps Foursquare Check-ins (smarterware.org)
• 5 Tips & Tricks To Avoid Facebook Phishing Scams (makeuseof.com)
• Blekko and DuckDuckGo Partnership Shows How Startups Can Take on the Big Guys (readwriteweb.com)
• Solving the Insolvable Problem of Information Overload (webpronews.com)

Flipboard, free app for your iPad!

Flipboard is a free application for the Apple iPad that creates your own updated magazine with content that your friends are sharing on Facebook and Twitter. You can also comment on or Like any piece of content directly from Flipboard, which makes it ideal for keeping up to date any time you want to.
And, of course, the price is right!

Strange Random Network Quote:

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” – Jane Howard

Related articles by Zemanta

• How Flipboard is changing what I read and how I interact with people (ipadwatcher.com)
• Get Autoblog on Flipboard for your iPad in 3 easy steps (autoblog.com)
• Have an iPad? You have to start using Flipboard (customerthink.com)
• Flipboard — The Social iPad App Everyone Is Going Crazy Over — Explained In 80 Seconds (businessinsider.com)
• Flipboard Is a Digital “Magazine” Based on What Your Friends Are Reading [Downloads] (lifehacker.com)