1. BSI Southwest Airlines – Nuts about Online Communication
Marketing 2.0 Conference, Paris 2009

2. Join the conversation
MARKETING 2.0 CONFERENCE
www.marketing2conference.com

3. SOUTHWEST AIRLINES
NUTS ABOUT COMMUNICATION

4. Leveraging Online tools
• A&E’s Airline
• Blog - Nuts About Southwest
• Youtube
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Flickr
• LinkedIn

5. Nuts About Southwest launched April 2006
Nuts About Southwest was originally launched
as a means of giving our Customers a look inside
the Culture and operations of Southwest Airlines
and allowing them to interact and build personal
relationships with our Employees.
Now serves as:
• a virtual focus group
• a place to make and break news
• a place to tell “the rest of the story”
• an incubator for new ideas
• a platform for our Employees to share
industry knowledge and connect with
Customers
• a resource for SEO - “Google Juice”
Although Nuts About Southwest has put no
specific focus on sales, since its inception, it has
generated >$500,000 in revenue.

6. Ana Schwager
Angela Vargo
30+ EMPLOYEE BLOGGERS
Ashley Rogers
Bert Stevens Nuts About Southwest features more than
30 Employee bloggers that represent a mix
Beverly Behrens
of Frontline and behind-the-scenes
Bill Owen Employees including Mechanics, Customer
Service Agents, Schedule Planners,
Bob Hurst Executives, Marketing Representatives,
Flight Attendants, Pilots, and more.
Brian Lusk
Carole Adams
Each Employee blogger brings to the table a
Casey Welch unique voice, perspective, and
personality to share with our Customers.
Christi Day
David Evans, Jr.
We know that our People are our greatest
Dawn Foster asset. The blog gives our Employees a
platform to share their industry knowledge,
Edward Shlelswell-White exchange personal stories, and really
connect our Customers to the Southwest
Fred Taylor Culture we live and experience everyday.
Gordon Guillory
Hollee Ford
Jeff Lamb

7. NUTS has reached >1 million unique visitors
Blog Traffic To Date
~132,000 TOTAL
180000  24.71% percent of the blog’s
VISITORS IN 4Q
160000 traffic comes from people
140000 typing in our URL
Blog Traffic To Date
120000  36.99% comes from referring
~105,000 UNIQUE
websites
Number of Visitors
100000
VISITORS IN 4Q  38.29% comes from search
80000
engines
60000
40000
20000 Top Search Terms (driving traffic to site)
0 1. Southwest Airlines
4/1/06
6/1/06
8/1/06
10/1/06
12/1/06
2/1/07
4/1/07
6/1/07
8/1/07
10/1/07
12/1/07
2/1/08
4/1/08
6/1/08
8/1/08
10/1/08
12/1/08
2. Nuts About Southwest
3. Southwest Blog
4. Southwest Airlines Blog
5. Southwest Airlines Hawaii
It takes time to build a trusting audience in the
blogosphere, and we are thrilled with the organic growth
we have seen over the last two and a half years.

8. Where are our Customers? Not just on our blog.
We currently have more than
10,000 Customer submitted
STAYING AHEAD
photographs in our SWA
Flickr account. OF THE CURVE
Within weeks of establishing
a Facebook account, more
than 65,000 members Our Customers are communicating
became “friends” of SWA. with us through a number of
different online channels.
We now have over 17,000
followers and we grow by an
Using these tools allows us to:
average of 100 new
followers each day!
• Stay on the cutting edge of
Over the last year and a half, technology and Communication
we have posted a new SWA
video to YouTube almost • Communicate directly with our
every week, and more than
100,000,000 people have Customers in the formats they
viewed our content. prefer
Southwest has more than • Reach a broader audience
500 Employees listed on
LinkedIn including our CEO.

9. May 5, 2008 we launched Blog 2.0
USER LOGIN
PERSONALIZATION AND PROFILES
OPTIONS
ORIGINAL BLOG
FLICKR FEED
READER POLLS
VIDEO BLOG
SHARING
FEATURES
OFFICIAL PHOTO
AND VIDEO
GALLERIES NEWS FEED
PODCASTS
LINKS TO SWA
COMMUNITIES
RATING
OPPORTUNITIES

10. Nuts About Southwest 2.0 launched May 2008
Nearly six months in the making, Nuts
About Southwest 2.0 launched in May
2008 with several new features including
a video blog, podcast, poll, news feed,
Customer Generated photo feed, official
photo and video galleries, and other
personalization options.
Within months of launching the
new site:
• Visits up 25%
• Page Views Per Visit up 40%
• Visitors staying 26% longer
In October, our site was named Best
Blog for 2008 by PR News (second year
in a row).

11. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
 Southwest + Hawaii: When Aloha Airlines
closed its doors, the number of online
searches for Southwest and Hawaii spiked as
Customers scrambled to rebook their Hawaii
travel and seek some reassurances for future
OUR BLOG CONTENT IS INCREASING OUR travel. Southwest was prepared with an
ONLINE SEARCHABILITY (aka "Google Juice“) informative post from Schedule Planner Bill
Owen. The post received more than 10,000
views, helped us capture and address
Customer concerns, and continues to serve
By providing timely and relevant content – as an "expert resource" for journalist seeking
particularly around HOT issues – we are able information on the subject.
to:
 Southwest + Baggage: With the recent
changes to industry baggage policies and the
1. Position ourselves at top of search addition of unwelcome fees, searches for
Southwest Baggage, Southwest Baggage
engine results restrictions, and the like have increased. As a
2. Draw readers to our sight result, our baggage posts continue to be
among the top-viewed content on the site –
3. Lead & Influence the discussions even entries and videos that were posted last
year – allowing us to further reinforce our
points-of-difference messages with
unique/visual content.

12. CASE STUDIES
1. To Assign or Not To Assign
2. The Mini-Skirt Issue
3. Too Pretty to Fly
4. The FAA Allegations

13. EARLY SUCCESSES &
LEARNING EXPERIENCES
CASE STUDY:
ASSIGNED SEATING
• Announced Assigned
Seating test with CEO
blog post
• Received 700 comments
• Most Customers said “If it
ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” “I
love your open seating
policy, please don’t
change.”
• Influenced executives
• VIRTUAL FOCUS
GROUP

14. EARLY SUCCESSES &
LEARNING EXPERIENCES CASE STUDY:
THE MINI SKIRT ISSUE
• Customer appears on Today Show
• Blog immediately flooded with comments
• Posted acknowledgement
• Received more than 1000 comments, 2/3 of
which said we “screwed up”
The GOOD news…
• Gauge public sentiment
• Earn credibility and trust of site
The BAD news…
• Missed the opportunity to shape the
message by not stating our position clearly
and presenting the facts as we knew them
• Used the wrong tone
• Let the conversation go on for far to long with
out participating

15. CASE STUDY:
TOO PRETTY TO FLY
• Customers denied boarding for
threatening behavior
• Claim they were “banned for life” because
they were “too pretty”
• Mainstream media covering only one side
of the story
• Joke or serious threat to reputation?
• On the heels of the mini skirt debacle,
couldn’t risk it…
• Needed to communicate directly with our
Customers via:
1. Online spokespeople
2. Official Statement
3. YouTube video

16. RECEIVED TREMENDOUS
SUPPORT FROM BLOGGERS
From http://patterico.com/2008/02/24/beauty-and-the-luv-police/
1. Cool… a spokesperson who speaks like a person. Go figure…
Comment by Leviticus — 2/25/2008 @ 12:35 pm
2. Thanks for your response, Ms. Berg. I’ve posted most of the Southwest stories here. I notice them because my
West Texas family regularly (and happily) flies Southwest Airlines, so I’m interested in what Southwest does.
Comment by DRJ — 2/25/2008 @ 12:40 pm
3. Ms. Berg, if I weren’t already a frequent flyer of Southwest, I would be now simply based on your informative
and thoughtful response. Not many companies would take the time, nor feel the need to reassure customers.
Kudos.
Comment by Dana — 2/25/2008 @ 1:17 pm
4. I must admit, I’m VERY impressed… Someone from SWA coming her to lay out their side? Next time I have a
flight to take, I’ll have to make sure to make at least part of the trip via your airlines…
Comment by Scott Jacobs — 2/25/2008 @ 10:08 pm
5. I too am impressed by SWA’s response. The lawyerly output of most corporations in response to potentially
embarrassing events almost universally prevents this kind of interaction. When I say almost always, I think that
this is the first and only time I’ve been witness to such a response. Amazing.
Comment by j.pickens — 2/25/2008 @ 10:24 pm
6. Paula, Patterico seems to have turned off trackbacks, but I wanted you to see my reaction to your participation
in this comment thread. As someone who has dealt with blogs criticizing my own company, I was impressed
with your response.
Comment by Doc Rampage — 2/26/2008 @ 3:32 am

17. TOP VIEWED VIDEO
Total views: 200,000+
Total comments: 350+
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
#8 most viewed video of the day
#32 most discussed video of the day
#86 most views of the week

18. CASE STUDY:
FAA Fines SWA For Missed Inspections
On March 6, 2008, the FAA levied a $10.2 million fine against  March 12th (the day we
Southwest Airlines for alleged missed aircraft inspections, sparking grounded aircraft in the wake
what was arguably the biggest threat to our airline and our of the FAA news) was the
reputation in our 37 year history. most popular day for total
visitors.
Over the following eight days, we posted a total of five posts:
Title Date Time Comments
We Take Safety Seriously March 6, 2008 10:36pm 180
Southwest Airlines’ CEO Appears on CNN March 7, 2008 11:33am 68
Southwest Airlines Responds To Preliminary Findings of March 11, 2008 3:27pm 73
Internal Investigation
Southwest Airlines Continues Internal Audit March 12, 2008 2:12pm 90
ABC’s Nightline Features Southwest Airlines March 13, 2008 8:36am 12
The posts generated approximately 450 cumulative comments, the majority of which were negative.

19. CASE STUDY (cont.)
“You must need nerves of steel to work in Southwest Airlines
Communication department right now. Once you mount the
corporate-blogging horse there's no getting off it again. And Southwest is
learning enough about what can then happen to write the ultimate book on
the subject. Yesterday they finally decided there was no choice but to
temporarily ground 44 of their Boeing 737s - including 38 taken straight off
the line - affected by the safety allegations that have blown up around them.
At time of writing they have 17 comments in response to the 260 they
received on their earlier posts on the issue. The 17 are markedly more
negative than positive - although the hard core of support is indicative of a
degree of loyalty that many other companies would struggle to secure.
Obviously this is not going to go away easily. So will Southwest have
regrets over the blog? I'm pretty sure that they won't. On
balance it's been a great tool for them in this horrendous
situation. Most importantly of all, it's let their supporters
declare their positive views in public - something that never
really happens with conventional media coverage because
nobody's out looking for those people. Barring new developments,
this may be the nadir for Southwest in this saga, now it's going to be
interesting to see how they use the blog to repair the inevitable damage.”
----

20. Bad PR Leaves One Reputation
Grounded While Another One Soars
BY Katie Paine
You can tell a lot more about an organization’s culture by its response to a crisis than you can from its annual report.
Earlier this year, planes from both Southwest Airlines and American Airlines were grounded by the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA).
In Southwest’s case, an internal audit revealed a flaw in its inspection process, and SWA voluntarily grounded 38
planes, which resulted in the cancella-tion of 4% of its flights. Similar inspection problems later caused American
Airlines to ground hundreds of planes and cancel 14% of its flights. For one organization, it was a blip; for the other, it
was a disaster of epic proportions. The differ-ence, we believe, was corporate culture, and its relationships with the
traveling public.
In 2006, Southwest executives wanted to test the social media waters, so they started a blog called Nuts About
Southwest www.blogsouthwest.com. It was primarily written by the corporate communications department and, as a
result, got some criticism from the blogerati. However, the airline responded to feedback; it solicited numerous guest
bloggers from all over the airline, and the conversations began. It quickly became a great way for Southwest to listen to
its customers, as well as a place to deliver good news and bad. It was fun, irreverent, occasionally funny and very in
line with Southwest’s culture.
So, when troubles with the FAA began, information was quickly posted on the blog, and all of Southwest
founder Herb Kelleher’s statement to Congress was made available there as well. Customers weighed in—and
many of them were not happy with the situation—but it was all out there for the world to see.
In contrast, American Airlines launched its blog, www.AAConversation.com, after it had canceled its flights and enraged
millions of travelers. It was written by “Billy S,” an American employee whose post-ings sounded, according to one
commenter, like press releases. After several weeks, Billy S confessed that he was, in fact, exactly what most people
expected: director of corporate communications, promotions and advertising for AA. To be fair, it’s only been up since
April 11, and so far there are five posts and 26 comments—mostly negative. But it is clearly designed to make sure
that their side of the story got out there, and therein lies the difference. Southwest wanted to hear what its
customers had to say, American wanted to tell its side of the story.

21. Twitter

22. Twitter-mania
Twitter is changing the face of communication for Corporations
 Southwest has been a member since July 07
 We currently have >17,000 followers
 We are averaging 100 new followers a day
 Many of our followers are bloggers and
mainstream media reporters.
 Our Twitter activity continues to garner
positive headlines.
 Twitter was instrumental in the recent
coverage of US Airways Hudson River
incident (see case study on next slide)
PC Mag listed Southwest Airlines among
10 Corporate Twitter Accounts Worth
Following.
According to Mashable.com's Top 40 list
of Twitter brands, SWA is recognized for its
ability to use the tool to communicate with
its audience and disseminate information.

23. Twitter-mania
Within 10 minutes of the
aircraft touching the water,
a witness generated photo
and headline was
circulating on Twitter
Case Study: US Airways Incident
3:26 Incident occurs
3:36 10 minutes later, a passenger on the rescue ferry Twitters from his iPhone
the first known photo of the incident. 34 minutes later, MSNBC interviews
him as a witness.
3:36 Airliners.net posts its first thread on incident
3:41 FlyerTalk.com posts its first thread on the incident
3:46 Airline Pilots Central Forum posts its first thread on the incident
3:49 WSJ Blog posts its first story: “US Airways Plane Crashes in New York’s Hudson
River”
3:52 A WSJ e-mail alert is issued to subscribers
4:00 Story appears on Google News
4:03 AP story begins to appears on blogs and websites
4:04 First person to Tweet the story is interviewed on MSNBC as witness
4:12 US Airways issues 1st statement
4:15 9 of the 10 most discussed topics on Twitter are about the incident
4:30 @SouthwestAir (Southwest’s Twitter profile) posts the following message: Our
friends @USAir and their Customers are in our thoughts this afternoon
4:34 Someone Tweets that Wikipedia has an entry on the crash before any
information is available on usairways.com.
4:40 Twitterers are anticipating the US Airways Press Conference
4:49 US Airways issues 2nd statement
4:56 Someone creates a Twitter profile titled “@Hudsoncrash” to share news
4:59 @SkyTalk (The Star-Telegram Twitter profile) Tweets the link to the flight
log
@jkrums There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm 5:00 USAirways creates its first Twitter account (@USAirways)
on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy. 5:20 People begin following the newly created US Airways twitter account. They
currently have 217 followers. At the time, we had 8,500 followers.

24. Our efforts continue to be  Members of our team have
been included on a list of First
Generation “Social Media
recognized as a model for Pioneers” created by Online
Communication Guru
Social Media success. Jeremiah Owyang.
“SOUTHWEST AIRLINES IS TAKING OVER THE INTERNET”
- Januted.com
PRWeek recently recognized
Southwest airlines among five
companies that “get social media.”
For the second year in a row, Nuts
About Southwest was named
Best Blog by PR News.

25. Measurement & ROI
Trying to make sense of it all
 Every Day
 Every Week
 Every Month
 Every Quarter
 Every Year
Reading between the numbers - we try to
tell the story, to bring the Numbers to life

26. Daily Reporting
Search for
“Southwest” and
other relevant terms
GOOGLE READER
Select a sampling of
posts to share with
team and leaders
Subscribe to
RSS Feeds
Categorized by
Subject

27. Daily, Weekly & Monthly Reporting
What we’re looking for…
– The Numbers
– HOT Topics
– Ah-ha Moment
– Blogger Profiles
– Customer Insights
– Quote of the Week
Quarterly Reporting
In Depth
– Analytics
– Consumer Generated Content
– Quarterly Case Study

28. TAKE AWAYS
1. Establish channels before a crisis
• Dabble: Blogs, YouTube, Facebook
• Don’t rely on the numbers
• Build Relationships
2. Don’t be afraid to join the conversation
• Be gracious, be honest, be real
• Speak the language of your audience
• Have a thick skin
3. Act fast
• Doesn’t have to be perfect
• Set the tone for the conversation
• Harder to repair a damaged reputation than maintain a good one
4. Build a strong team
• Social media takes time, passion, and guts
• Don’t do it alone
• Look outside of your department

29. ARE YOU NUTS?
Visit Nuts About Southwest
WWW.BLOGSOUTHWEST.COM
Paula.Berg@wnco.com