Here is a case study on WestJet's us of Social Media. Its no secret that WestJet has a top creative team supporting their effort. Looking beyond some of their viral videos, we can see that the airline is doing much more than making us laugh. Take a look and see how they handle crises, customer service, revenue generation and more via social media. This presentation has a strong focus on Twitter. I completed this in the context of some graduate studies I was completing in February 2015.

1. Prepared by Jonathan Bagg

2. BestViral Campaign 2014
Christmas MiracleVideo
Best Customer Service 2013
Best Activity Generating Brand Awareness 2014
Best Activity Generating BrandVolume 2014
Best Use of Social Media 2014
Simpliflying BestAirline on Social Media 2014 (Finalist)

3. 0 200,000 400,000 600,000
Facebook (Page Likes)
Twitter (Followers)
Likes/Followers

4. 0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000
YouTube (Subscriptions)
Instagram
LinkedIn
Followers/Subscribers

6. Employees empowered to contribute
positively to the company
reputations, guided by a not-overly
prescriptive social media policy.

7. “It is in a company’s own
best interests to behave
ethically and talk candidly.
Shinning that kind of light
on a company where people
work hard, believe in what
they do, in a manner of
which they can be proud will
pay dividends to that
organization.” (Holtz, 2009)

9. Many customers see
themelves as
WestJetters

10. Loyal customers
are a part of the
fun experience.

15. • Christmas Miracle: 41M+ views for first video,
3M+ for second.
• Entertaining, feel good – provides positive
exposure well beyond customer base.
• Drives revenue: bookings in the period
following the Christmas Miracle video
increased 77 per cent and revenue increasing
86 per cent from the prior year.

16. • Keeps many looking forward to the
next time “WestJet does it again”.
• Speaks to people wanting to have fun
and associates fun with the brand. No
frill flying doesn’t have to mean no fun
flying.

17. The April Fool’s videos, which are
associated with a single-day sale,
bring in millions in revenue.

20. Most issues responded to within minutes.

21. When service can’t be perfect or
conditions are less than ideal, they
make exceptions.

23. • Great, sincere and humouristic effect
of having employees and leaders
read real tweets – both good and
bad.
• Call to action encouraging people to
engage them on social with the
WestJet hashtag.

24. WestJet Flight 2154 –
January 10, 2015.
Vancouver to Puerto
Vallarta.
Transponder is
squawking the hijack
code according to
public radar tracking
service.

25. • At least20 additional tweets were issued directly to followers with #WS2154.
• Many more without the #.

26. Quick response gets noticed.

28. Polar Vortex
Continued.
Regularly
updated blog.

31. Give publics an incentive to
participate.
Limit one-way advertising.
Don’t force people to spam
their own networks to
participate
#BlueTag offers exclusive to
social.An added incentive to
follow.