We have been reporting on the Top Social Media Airports for over a year now. This includes both Top 10 Airports Using Twitter and Top 10 Airports Using Facebook. We thought we would have a closer look at exactly what some the social media programs were and publish the best Social Media Initiatives by airports.

Among social media platforms, Twitter seems to be the preferred social media platform for most airports looking to engage their customers. Airports are certainly using social media, with 200+ airports using social media, either Twitter or Facebook.

Our colleague David Orton's recent post on the topic of Location Based Marketing raised some good points on the challenges facing Airports and Airlines.

The basic cause and effect is that current web properties and services are structured in operational silos, which do not consider the passenger as the primary focus. In our current program to create the Passenger Experience Index as the "Passenger First" starting point to create a services framework, we are considering the complex services touch points, data collection and flow and related stakeholders as David had presented.

We have been speaking with airport retail groups lately, and they have started to hear about location based marketing start-up app, Foursquare. As a location based platform, Foursquare has done a good job legitimizing the use of smartphone GPS location data. Following a social network platform, Foursquare allows people to sign up and add some personal data, then add friends by inviting them, finding new friends from location check-ins or from spotting "tweets" nearby.

Passenger Experience Index ^sm Part 2:   Components Defined

Overarching Goals of the PEI

1. Help prove the business value of determining an Index.
2. Make the Index a live, interactive process.
3. Benchmark with/against other aviation industry stakeholders.
4. Design breakthrough interactions.
5. Lead a passenger experience transformation.