Two Important Factors Needs To Be Considered In Social Media

Question: The Important Factors to Consider In Social Media ? Answer: Introduction: The main purpose of this memo is to highlight the issue related to communication in organization that has been faced by the top Australian airlines Brand Qantas Airlines. This article is the biggest proof of how quality service matters for every organization. Being one of the top airline brands of the world Qantas Airlines has faced several issues in the year 2010 and 2011. From back to back engine failure to negotiation issues with the 3 unions, the time between 2010 and 2011 was very hard time for the company. This particular incident has also shown that how wrong promotions in wrong time can affect the brand image in a negative way. The service of any company is directly related the brand image. If the company fails to give proper service then the brand image cannot do anything in saving the company. Thesis statement: Every brand has to maintain good quality service and proper communication in order to retain customers and attract new ones. Preview: Being one of the top airline brand Qantas faced severe issues in the year 2010 and 2011. On August 30, 2010 a Qantas four engine Boeing 747 which was left from San Francisco had to return back to San Francisco airport after struggling for 45 minutes on the air due to engine failure. In that same year another flight returned to Singapore after take of due to engine collapse. On November 5 2010 another Boeing 747 which took off from Singapore had top return as one of the engine caught fire. All these back to back incidents shook the company completely. People were actually scared in boarding a Qantas flight. Their market share dropped rapidly in 1 month. All these factors created huge impact on the brand image of the company. Moreover there was also some internal problem that took place in the organization. In the year 2011 there were some issues between labors and the 3 company unions. The labors called for strike and the company was forced to reschedule and cancel lots of flights aro und the world. More than 68000 passengers around the world became extremely angry due to these cancellations and rescheduling of flights. As a result of which other companies like Virgin Airlines got huge advantage. Virgin Airlines understood the consequences and they started giving discounts on their tickets and they got a very positive result. After all these issues the company announced a competition on their official twitter page where they asked to share their suggestion for a luxury experience in the flight under the hash tag #Qantas Luxury. They also announced that winners will get 50 luxury pygamas. But unfortunately the response that they received was extremely negative. People started taking out their frustrations that they faced because of the flight delays and cancellation. key issues identified The first and most important issue faced by Qantas is their engine problems. An aircraft is responsible for the life of their passengers. People pay for their safety. Now if in one year there are 3 back to back engine related problems then it is quite obvious people will get afraid in travelling with the airline. So brand image is bound to get hampered. The second most important issue identified in the case is the conflict between the labors and the 3 company unions. This issue had led to several rescheduling of flights and cancelation of flights More than 60000 passengers faced huge problems due to this. Other competitors took advantage of this issue. The 3rd issue that has been identified is the timing of announcing the contest on the social network site Twitter. The time was not appropriate for such initiative. People were very angry and frustrated with the service. This competition that too in a social networking site gave the people opportunity to take out their frustrations. Future actions They should not organize any event or competition just when they have done any blunder. Any advertisement campaign can only be successful if it is done at a proper time. Timing is really important. Psychology of the customer plays a huge role in strategic marketing initiatives. When Qantas already knew that they did few blunders in the recent past for which their customers are already frustrated, they should have avoided taking such risk of organizing competition. They have to give serious attention to their service. Service and products is the lifeline for every company operating in the market. No matter whatever how much the company invests on promotion an advertisements, it will fail until they provide proper service or products to the customer. If these two aspects are not taken care off then it is quite obvious that negative word of mouth publicity will occur which will create an impact n the sales. Two important factors needs to be considered in social media As opined by Chang et al., (2015) around 75% of the people in countries like UK and Australia have accounts on social media network. So it is obvious that it is a great platform to reach to its target audience. But one has to keep in mind that unnecessary tweeting cannot help an organization to gain competitive advantage. A proper social media is required. The 2 most important things that every company should focus on social media marketing Know customers demand: Social media gives every company an opportunity to interact with their customers directly. It gives the company an opportunity to understand the exact needs of their customer. If any company sees that because of their bad service people are posting negative comments on social media platforms then they must immediately take prompt actions by apologizing to their customers in a proper way. They need to take some steps through which they can show that they care for their customers. According to Cader and Al Tenaiji, (2013), the biggest way to gain a customer is buying giving them extra value. Suppose a customer tweets about any issue that person has faced then immediately that person should get an apology and his issues has to be resolved. Proper message: As twitter is the main platform for most of the airlines company to directly express their viewpoints so they need to make sure their tweets are informative and accurate. While dealing with customer there should be warmth and compassion (Constantinides, 2013). They must implement strategies like cost leadership strategy in order to show that they give value to their budget customer as well (Keegan Rowley, 2017). Communication Plan 1.Timing Minimum 6 months 2.Audience The followers in twitter 3.Sender Social media marketing team of Qantas 4.Key Message The main message will be that though there have been mistakes from the company in the past and they are extremely sorry for the inconvenience caused. Now they have sorted out all their problems and are ready to provide an experience of a lifetime in their flights. 5.Desired Outcome The behavior will be extremely polite. They need to keep their cool and provide prompt and accurate answers to their customer. 6.Medium Twitter will be used as their communication channel. 7.Materials Lots of images of their services. Good color in their advertisements with a good tagline. 8.Frequency Qantas should be extremely active. In every 1 hour they should tweet. Summary It has been observed in this report that how a brand can lose it value because of their services and promoting wrong things at wrong time. Qantas which is Australias top airline company had almost lost everything in year 2010 and 11 due to their wrong publicity stunts on twitter. Though the company has struggled a lot they have made sure that such mistakes wont be repeated further. It is also to be noted that in the year 2011 they cancelled their 90th anniversary celebration due to their issues. So ups and downs happen in business, one should learn the way to overcome it. Reference List Cader, Y. Al Tenaiji, A.A., 2013. Social media marketing.International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation,2(6), pp.546-560. Chang, Y.T., Yu, H. Lu, H.P., (2015). Persuasive messages, popularity cohesion, and message diffusion in social media marketing.Journal of Business Research,68(4), pp.777-782. Constantinides, E., (2013). Social Media Marketing: Challenges and Opportunities.Consumer Information Systems and Relationship Management: Design, Implementation, and Use: Design, Implementation, and Use,51. Keegan, B.J. Rowley, J., (2017). Evaluation and decision-making in social media marketing.Management Decision,55(1). Pfeffer, J., Zorbach, T. Carley, K.M., (2014). Understanding online firestorms: Negative word-of-mouth dynamics in social media networks.Journal of Marketing Communications,20(1-2), pp.117-128. Vinerean, S., Cetina, I., Dumitrescu, L. Tichindelean, M., (2013). The effects of social media marketing on online consumer behavior.International Journal of Business and Management,8(14), p.66.