25 May 2015

Lithium identifies socially savvy airlines, hotels

Lithium Technologies has announced its Klout 50: Summer Travel Edition, which identifies the top 25 airlines and 25 hotels around the world based on social engagement and expertise. These travel and hospitality leaders achieved the most influence among their followers for the way they connect and share experiences on social, and also for the expertise they deliver to make everyone's vacations and business trips better.

The Klout 50 rankings are generated by each brand's Klout score, which tracks social engagement, sharing, and influence using proprietary algorithms. It is determined by more than 400 signals from eight different networks, including Facebook, Twitter and Google+ as well as real-world data from Wikipedia.

For the airlines, Lithium used Skytrax's World Airline Awards 2014 to identify the top 25 social media winners. Key findings include:

British Airways ranks #1 on the Klout list for social influence (and #17 in the World's Top Airline list) and is an expert in Europe, Hong Kong and Scotland
Virgin America ranks #8 on Klout and made a huge jump up from #46 on the World's Top Airline list
Cathay Pacific Airways has expertise in "Food" – which shows that content needs to engage a follower or customer holistically, and not just through the lens of a customer relationship management (CRM) or revenue record

Klout 50: Summer Travel Edition

Airlines in the Top 25 Airlines which fly to Asia Pacific or the Middle East, Klout Score

1. British Airways, 90.27

2. Air Canada, 87.83

3. easyJet, 86.24

4. Virgin Atlantic, 86.18

5. Malaysia Airlines*, 86.02

6. Turkish Airlines, 86.00

7. Cathay Pacific Airways, 85.20

8. Virgin America, 85.15

9. Virgin Australia, 85.03

11. KLM, 81.76

12. Qatar Airways, 80.86

13. Qantas Airways, 80.56

14. Garuda Indonesia, 80.44

15. Delta Air Lines, 80.12

16. Emirates, 78.39

17. Jetstar Asia, 76.93

20. Etihad Airways, 72.38

21. Lufthansa, 71.97

22. AirAsia, 71.57

23. AirAsiaX, 71.57

24. Swiss, 70.45

25. Air Astana, 70.45

For the hotels, Lithium analysed Travel & Leisure's World's Best 2014 Top 100 Hotels and found that six Four Season Hotels made the top 25 list, which indicates the brand is socially savvy.

Klout 50: Summer Travel Edition

Hotels in Thailand, Hong Kong and India within the Top 25 Hotels list, Klout Score

9. Oberoi Udaivilas, Udaipur, India, 60.33

12. Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur, India, 59.95

17. Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai, Thailand, 55.16

20. Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok, 54.51

22. Four Seasons Hotel, Hong Kong, 53.95

23. The Peninsula, Hong Kong, 52.78

Lithium notes that the lowest Klout score among the top 25 airlines is higher than the highest score among the top 25 hotels. Lithium believes this is because airlines have been forced to deal with "social shaming" via Twitter and other social networks in very public ways—and have built social infrastructures to handle those service complaints. Additionally, the airlines are bigger companies than the individual hotel properties ranked in this Klout list, indicating the benefits of scale and unified social presence on digital networks.

"What these Klout Scores reveal – especially for those who ranked further down by the respective lists we analysed, but higher on Klout - is that what they do on social really matters to their customers," said Katy Keim, Chief Marketing Officer at Lithium. "You can be ranked and judged by a variety of factors within your industry, but your customers are online, they're social and they're paying attention to your presence there. These airlines and hotels should be very proud of their social media accomplishments and we're proud to be able to recognise their reputation among consumers."

The Klout 50 was launched in 2014 as the ultimate ranking of brands that are authentically connecting with their digital audience. These social elite brands are the most active on social media platforms and their audiences consistently share and interact with their digital content.

Interested?

See all the Klout Expertise rankings at www.klout.com and explore each brand's "topic expertise."

*Malaysia Airlines (MAS) today appointed an Administrator to facilitate the transfer of selected assets and liabilities from MAS to a new company, Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB), which will effectively take over by 1 September 2015. MAS continues to operate throughout the period up to and including 31 August 2015, after which MAB will operate the business of the airline.
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