Jetstar and Social Media

After much dilemma and a lot research, I have decided to use Jetstar for my second assignment.   The choice of using Jetstar became more apparent after my recent experience with them.

Jetstar Group

Jetstar has carried more than 2oo million passengers since it was  launched in Australia in 2004.  Jetstar’s mission is to offer low fares to enable more people to fly to more places, more often.  Wholly owned subsidiary of the Qantas Group, Jetstar Airways forms an integral part of the Qantas Group’s two-brand strategy, operating in the leisure and value-based market.

While Jetstar operates from both Australia and New Zealand, for the focus of this assignment, Jetstar New Zealand will be the focus.

Jetstar Airways in Australia

Jetstar Airways Pty Limited launched its Australian low-fare operations in May 2004.  Jetstar offers flights to and from 19 Australian domestic and 17 short and long-haul overseas destinations and is currently the third largest airline (by domestic market share) and a top five international airline by capacity share, serving international routes to and from Australia.

 Jetstar Airways in New Zealand

Jetstar was launched in New Zealand in December 2005 for international flight and in June 2009, domestic flights commenced. Jetstar now operates more than 50 weekly international return services between Australia  New Zealand and over 200 weekly return domestic flights in new Zealand.

A fleet of 9 Airbus A320s and 5 Bombardier Q300s are based in New Zealand supporting Jetstar’s New Zealand domestic and international operations. (Q300s are operated by Eastern Australian Airlines for Jetstar Airways).

David Hall is the Chief Executive of Jetstar’s Australia and New Zealand business  while Grant Kerr is Head of Jetstar in New Zealand.  More information can be found here.

Use of Social Media

Jetstar is an active social media user. In March 2011, Jetstar had announced spending 40 percent of marketing budget into social media and online channels.

  Social media networks for Jetstar includes:

• Facebook – has over 105,393 likes and promises to reply within one day.
• Twitter – has 3,786 followers and has 3,574 tweets.
• LinkedIn –  Jetstar’s professional network has over 24,770 followers
• Pinterest –  has 62 pins and over 100 followers
• Instagram – has more than 160,00 posts.
• Google – has over 5,500 views

Jetstar even has it’s own blog page .

Image retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/JetstarNZ/

This link will take you directly to Jetstar’s social media newsroom.

 

Social media plays a vital role for Jetstar.  Not only it uses it for business purpose,  creating community posts and awareness is also of prime interest.

Return on Investment (ROI): Analytics and Measurement

Intro:

Return on investment (ROI) is the benefit to an investor resulting from an investment of some resource.  A high ROI means the investment gains compare favourably to investment cost. As a performance measure, ROI is used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. In purely economic terms, it is one way of considering profits in relation to capital invested.

Maturing from an experiment to a core business strategy, social media is now an impactful marketing channel that needs to compete against other channels—for budget, resources, and respect. This means that social, like other channels, has to prove its return on investment.

Measuring the return on your social media investment is no longer optional. To secure executive buy-in for social marketing strategies—and larger, dedicated budgets—digital and marketing leaders need to confidently demonstrate how social media efforts are contributing to an organization’s broader business goals.

Measuring and tracking social media return on investment (ROI) accurately also lets marketers put more time and resources into what’s working, and improve the tactics that aren’t delivering real value. To help you evaluate your social media ROI, we’ve put together the following guide.

Social media ROI

Social media ROI = (SM return – SM investment) / SM investment percent.

Like any formula, the math is easy if you have all the variables. In his book “Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in your Organization,” author Oliver Blanchard explains that the ability to measure financial outcomes by a dollar value is significant because, “The investment, the gain, and the return must be measured in the same currency (the unit of measure of the investment, the gain, and the return must be the same in order for the ROI equation to function), only a financial outcome can qualify as a proper gain or return. In other words, financial outcomes are the culmination of any investment. This is where return is always measured.

Hoffman and Fodor recommended starting with the 4C’s of consumer motivations identifying these principles as:

1. Connect– consumers use social media to build connections with friends & other consumers
2. Create – user created content through blog comments, Facebook posts, tweets etc.
3. Consume – engage with on-line content such as YouTube clips, video and articles
4. Control – consumers taking control by choosing how, when and where they engage – consider this point when contemplating the effects of advertising during movies and sports events

Linking engagement to activity, building loyalty and putting customers in the control seat. To measure ROI organisations can use this approach by linking the probability of future sales activity to specific social media channels.

Measuring Social Media ROI

No business wants to put money and resources into something that doesn’t pay off. Will the results from the channel make the effort, time, and cost worth it? How will you prove this? Is there content that will perform better and show a higher ROI? How is this going to be measured?

There are various barriers to measuring the ROI which include limited resources, such as money and staffing, and increasingly the speed that social media is changing and evolving.  Given how quickly new types of social media are becoming part of our daily lives, it is no surprise that businesses may struggle to keep up with the pace of implementing them.  The following are some of the reasons that businesses gave up trying to measure ROI on social media:

• 56 percent: an inability to tie social media to business outcomes
• 39 percent: a lack of analytics, expertise and/or resources
• 38 percent: poor tools
• 35 percent: inconsistent analytical approaches
• 30 percent: unreliable data

The table above shows how social media ROI may be measured based on likes, follows, pins, email sign ups.

While it may seem difficult at first sight to prove these hesitations wrong, there are numerous tools available to help you. Once you’ve established your social media goals, you’ll need to identify and implement these tools and processes required to measure the ROI on your social media. This may involve adding tracking codes to URLs, building custom landing pages, and more.

There are a variety of social media analytics tools which service to track the diverse metrics you are after. Here are some to consider:

• Google Analytics: Track website traffic, on-site conversions, and sign-ups originating from social media campaigns.
• Salesforce: Add Salesforce tracking codes to the links you share on social networks. When paired with marketing automation software like Marketo, you’ll be able to track sales leads back to specific campaigns or social messages.
• Hootsuite Analytics: Hootsuite offers a variety of analytics tools to help you track your reach, conversions and more. A few noteworthy examples are:
• Hootsuite Insights will help you identify conversations within your industry, your reach, brand sentiment, and much more, with 100 million data sources, real-time results, and an intuitive interface.
• Custom URL parameters allows you to track which social networks and social messaging did or did not drive traffic to your site, blog, or landing page.
• Hootsuite Analytics Reports offer quick snapshots of your reach through metrics like follower growth, total daily URL click-through, and per-post stats for Facebook, Twitter, and more

Jason Falls makes a good observation noting that successful social media programmes are more about people than money therefore the traditional ROI doesn’t apply. This may be true however in my view social media contribution to building relationships and trust are indirect contributors to the traditional ROI measure. The strength lies in their ability to create a customer-centric business through generating customer motivations to engage.

Why is measuring ROI important?

• Proving the value of social media to your organization’s overall goals and business objectives
• Allowing you to clearly see where efforts and resources are being used efficiently
• Enabling you to evaluate where resources are being wasted, or not used as efficiently as possible
• Allowing you to recognize gaps in strategy, key messages, and content
• Showing where your social media budget is being used most effectively, and showing areas where it can be pulled back

Food For Thought?

According to recent industry reports, one of the top five social media marketing questions asked is “How do I measure social media ROI”.  Out of 88% that raised this question, only 37% said they were able to measure it.  A whopping 78% of marketers said they had trouble measuring social media ROI. Based on this, is measuring social media ROI beneficial or is it the Brand value that social media adds and the engagement it creates?

 

 

References

A Comprehensive Guide to Social Media ROI – Source:https://blog.hootsuite.com/measure-social-media-roi-business/

Etlinger, S. & Li, C. (2011). A framework for social analytics including six use cases for social media measurement. Altimeter Group, US. http://www.altimetergroup.com/research/reports/a-framework-for-social-analytics

Hoffman, D. L. & Fodor, M. (2010). Can you measure the ROI of your social media marketing? MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(1), 41-49.

https://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/author/jason-falls/

A Comprehensive Guide to Social Media ROI

https://www.amazon.ca/Social-Media-ROI-Measuring-Organization/dp/0789747413/188-3029734-7826561?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

 

Social Media Strategy

After writing 8 blogs, I am struggling to keep this blog fresh and exciting.  Anyway, this week’s learning is focusing on the following aspects of Social Media Strategy:

• How would you define a social media strategy and a social business strategy? How are they different?
• What are the elements of a social business strategy?
• What are the success factors of a social business strategy?

Social Media Strategy Vs Social Business Strategy

How does businesses like Jet Star, Air New Zealand and Rebel Sports NZ gets so many likes and followers in Face Book, Twitter and other social media networks? Has there been any planning involved or are they random updates?  Obviously these are big businesses and they wouldn’t put information or posts on social media without strategic planning, and therefore much planning and resources would have gone into their social media strategy.  Social business strategy goes hand in hand into social media strategy .

 

Social media strategies addresses ‘how social media can be used whereas Social business strategy is ‘the set of visions, goals, plans, and resources that align social media initiatives with business objectives’ (Li and Solis, 2013, p.7).  Weber (2011) describes how effective social media for businesses relies on the strong connection with business goals, so simply being on Instagram or Twitter doesn’t cut it

A successful social-media strategy is all about targeting the right people with the right messages. Social media is one of the most powerful tools in marketing  and if you used correctly, you can create a strong personal connection with your prospective customer.  To benefit from social media, you need to build a clear strategy that takes into account what you’re trying to achieve, who your customers are and what your competitors are doing.

Creating Social Media Strategy

The 2013 Altimeter report by Li and Solis  makes two very important distinctions concerning the success of a social business strategy;  alignment with the business goals and organisational alignment to deliver to those goals.

The Altimeter report also identified six distinct phases of development that can lead to a successful social business, namely:

1. Planning – listening to learn – this involves finding out about their customers social behaviour.  As with any journey, the first step in creating a social-media marketing strategy is to understand where you want to go. What is the purpose of your social media marketing efforts?
2. Presence – staking a claim – using mature channels such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube to cultivate a following with simple measures such as the number of likes, hits, re-tweets, traffic counts etc. that provide a gauge on interest and potential engagement
3. Engagement – deepening relationships though dialogue – connecting a deepening customer care relationship through listening, consulting and advising. For example, an energy company providing simple ideas on power saving methods, or advise on how to adjust your winter bill.
4. Formalised – organising for scale – establishing organisation wide governance. Engagement across the business especially at executive level. Create process and discipline.
5. Strategic – becoming a social business – integrating into all areas of the business – best practice developing metrics framework, such as including within a Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure engagement, activity, loyalty, referral levels & outcomes.
6. Converged – social becomes fully integrated within the business strategy. Social drives transformation– the business is social

Success factors of a social business strategy

There are seven factors of success defined by Altimeter report as outlined below:

1. Business goal definition – align your business goals in line with your overall business strategy.
2. Staffing – having adequate resources within your company to specialise in this area by utilising outsourced specialist capability to develop standards whilst building internal capabilities.
3. Long term vision to become a social business – inform everyone involved exactly why and what you are trying to achieve. Communicating the long term vision to stakeholders and initiating organisational change aligned to delivering the strategy.
4. Key executive support –developing the social business culture using a top down approach.  Top level executive cascading support to lower level staffs.
5. Initiate road map – have a plan in place that is much longer than the initial set up phase or even first few years. How are you going to review and evaluate if your social business strategy is working? This is a process to re-evaluate, assess and monitor performance against your objectives.
6. Process discipline and ongoing education – this is about planning and staff training across the business. The continual and relentless drive to  excel.
7. Technology selection only after strategy is set – Rushing into technology selection before setting your strategy can be an unwise decision.  Only once your strategy is aligned, then technology should be chosen to help implement your goals.

‘social media only succeeds if a solid strategy is in place to make the brand internally social as well as externally social. Many brands have jumped on to the new shiny, enticing tools only to realize that the tools selected are not appropriate for the job.’

 

References:

Li, C. & Solis, B. (2013). The evolution of social business: Six stages of social business transformation. Altimeter Group. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/Altimeter/the-evolution-of-social-business-six-stages-of-social-media-transformation

Frank Media.  (2013).  Social Business Strategy.  Retrieved from http:://frankmedia.com.au/frank-social-business-strategy/

KPMG (2011). Social media: The voyage of discovery for business. KPMG Research Report, July, Sydney

The Social Media Voyage for business.  Source: file:///C:/Users/saleshni/AppData/Local/Temp/social-media-the-voyage-of-discovery-for-business.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

Social Media And The State

A very interesting topic to write about.  I recall the days when the first we would hear anything about the government used to be via the 6pm news on the telly.   Now I log into Facebook and see feeds and posts on parliament updates from various sources.  How has this changed? What changes has the state made so that the public can know more about things that matters? What is the benefit of using social media by the government?

The Turning Point

Rapidly growing interest in the upper house affairs and the recognition of the citizen’s rights has brought many positive changes in how information has become readily available to the public via the use of social media and internet based sources.

The government holds data on behalf of the New Zealand public and they release it to enable the private and community sectors to use it to grow the economy, strengthen social and cultural fabric, and sustain the environment. The release of this information helps the public, local communities and the business sector to make informed decisions in regards to government related matters.

Through this commitment New Zealand citizens and businesses can expect a more efficient and accountable public sector, more services tailored to their needs, and a greater level of participation in shaping government decisions.

A programme of work called “Open Government Information and Data” was initiated in 2008 and, is currently hosted by Land Information New Zealand, and led by the Open Government Data Chief Executives Governance Group, and the Open Government Data Steering Group.   The Declaration on Open and Transparent Government was approved by Cabinet on 8 August 2011.

Benefits Of Open Government data

There are four key benefits of releasing government data:

• Improving government – Open data is improving government, primarily by tackling corruption and increasing transparency, and enhancing public services and resource allocation.
• Empowering citizens – Open data is empowering citizens to take control of their lives and demand change by enabling more informed decision making and new forms of social mobilization, both in turn facilitated by new ways of communicating and accessing information.
• Creating opportunity – Open data is creating new opportunities for citizens and organizations, by fostering innovation and promoting economic growth and job creation.
• Solving public problems – Open data is playing an increasingly important role in solving big public problems, primarily by allowing citizens and policymakers access to new forms of data-driven assessment of the problems at hand. It also enables data-driven engagement producing more targeted interventions and enhanced collaboration.
• Building trust – Open government enables transparency and help to build and maintain trust of the public and to seek and engage the public along the way.

Government Initiative To Use Social Media

In 2011 (November), the ICT Strategy Group (external site link) approved the “Social media in government” guidance and the aim was to encourage best practice of social media use by government agencies, provide useful templates and tools for planning, and give an overview of the strengths, weaknesses, benefits and risks of this very important and rapidly growing toolset.

 “Government agencies are beginning to view data and information as key public assets – the release of which can play a significant role in driving innovation through better decision making and the creation of new services, tools, and knowledge.” – Minister Louise Upston

soruce of extract: https://www.ict.govt.nz/programmes-and-initiatives/open-and-transparent-government/open-government-information-and-data-work-programm/

 

Social Media In Action

Image source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=921013891326500&set=p.921013891326500&type=3&theater

 

Social media include but are not limited to blogs, wikis (e.g. Wikipedia), social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), micro-blogging services (e.g. Twitter),and multimedia sharing  services (e.g. Flickr, YouTube). Social media are often associated such concepts as user-generated content, crowdsourcing, and Web 2.0.

Social Media opens up communication channels for the Government and the people to engage in various matters.  It makes the Government accountable for its decisions on a daily basis and overall approachable. A recent example is the flag referendum here in New Zealand. By expressing your opinion on Facebook, Twitter or your social media platform of choice the potential is there to reach an unprecedented amount of people to join in with their own opinions and have their voices heard.

 

image source: https://www.facebook.com/nzflag/

In terms of anti-corruption, social media has four major potential strengths: collaboration, participation, empowerment, and time. Social media is collaborative and is defined by social interaction. It provides the ability for users to connect with each other and form communities to socialize, share information, or to achieve a common goal or interest.

Social media can be empowering to its users as it gives them a platform to speak. It allows anyone with access to the internet the ability to inexpensively publish or broadcast information, effectively democratizing media. In terms of time, social media

Technologies allow users to immediately publish information in near real time.

While the push is to have more digital / internet based communication between the government and the public, it certainly pays to bear in mind that not everyone is computer savvy and that are technology glitches.  Also with access to any information, the responsibility to use (not abuse) lies with everyone.  Be good digital citizens.

 

References:

• Anderson, T. B. (2009). E-government as an anti-corruption strategy.
  Information Economics and Policy,21, 201−210.
• Bellamy, C.  & Busby, P.   (2011).  New Zealand Parliamentarians and Online Social Media.  (Parliamentary Library Research Paper 2011/01).  Wellington.

• ICT.govt.nz: https://www.ict.govt.nz/guidance-and-resources/open-government/declaration-open-and-transparent-government/

• https://www.ict.govt.nz/programmes-and-initiatives/open-and-transparent-government/open-government-information-and-data-work-programm/
• https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiTru3YgPnMAhUFn5QKHdtoB4gQFghIMAc&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdata.govt.nz%2F&usg=AFQjCNG47MEmSC6rmDwc-TOAKddf4b0VjQ&sig2=ENeLIyA0imBkXNN8iEeSYg&bvm=bv.122676328,d.dGo
• https://twitter.com/opendatanz

 

 

 

What is Blogging

blog text under magnifying glass

A blog is a frequently updated online  journal or diary. It is a place to express yourself to the world. A place to share your thoughts and your passions.  Blog is a short form for the word weblog. Blogs are a special type of website that usually displays date stamped entries in reverse chronological order.

Many blogs provide commentary on a certain subject, while others are  personal online diaries, or online brand advertising of a particular individual or company. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs and web pages.

History of Blogging

The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists or journalists.

According to research, the first blog was created by Junstin Hall while he was a student and it was called Links.net. At that time they weren’t called blogs, and he just referred to it as his personal homepage. Blogger was the first blogging website launched in 1999 by Pyra labs and google bought blogger in 2003 and added its own features such as integration with picasa to enable the users to post photos.

 

Different types of Blogs

• Micro blogging – practice of posting small pieces of digital content in the form of text, pictures, links, short videos, or other media on the internet.  Friends use it to keep in touch, business associates use it to coordinate meetings or share useful resources, and celebrities and politicians (or their publicists) micro blog about concert dates, lectures, book releases, or tour schedules.
• Personal blogs – an ongoing diary or commentary written by an individual, example, an update about a trip or family event. It is shared only among private connections.
• Collaborative blogs or group blogs – written and published by more than one author. Different authors contribute to a particular topic of interest and is targeted at a certain level of audiences.  These blogs are around a single theme, example, politics.
• Corporate and organizational blogs – used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or business.  It can also be used externally for marketing and branding or public relations.

 

Social Media and Blogging

Blogs have become an integral part of online culture. Blogs these days are now being used for business purposes as a form of social media.  It is used for self expression and connecting with people who are interested in the same topics or same interests as you, creating a platform to build a relation with the readers as they comment on posts and sharing though social media with the whole world. Effective blogs require understanding of the key attributes of blogging which are voice, frequency, style, features and the passion to become a blogger.

Some of the major advantage for businesses using blogs are below:

• Develop relationships with potential and existing customers – Blogging allows you to connect with your site visitors. This can be accomplished by asking your readers questions at the end of your posts to get the conversation going or by simply allowing comments and feedback. By reviewing and responding to readers’ comments, you can create a rapport with your audience, build trust, and gain valuable insight into what your customers are looking for.
• Establish your business as an industry leader- you can build trust and clout within your industry by providing valuable, expert information in your blog posts. Over  period of time, you become a “go to” resource for helpful, informative content, which can ultimately lead to higher customer conversion rates. This is especially important for small businesses looking to gain credibility to compete with larger companies.
• Create connection and relationship between people and your brand -Blog posting allows you to show a personal side of your business that perspective and current customers won’t see through outbound marketing techniques. Blogging gives others a sense of the corporate standards, vision, and personality of your company.
• Engage with readers and blog users
• Share links, images, videos and receive feedback from readers via comments
• helps to keep profile information up to date for the readers and followers to build trust and loyalty.
• Place targeted blogs based on demographics and various interests and keep track.

 

References

• Kaplan, A.M. & Haenlein, M.  (2010). Users of the world unite!  The challenges and opportunities of social media.  Business Horizons, 53(1), 59-68.