Case Studies
Creating the airport 2.0
Airports are places where people connect – in multiple senses of the word. The social web, too, is all about connections. So how can an airport use the new web-based communication tools to its advantage? This was the question Sandbox was asked by one of Europe’s biggest airports.
In order to answer it, we first set out to create a Social Media Audit for our client. We looked at already existing conversations about the airport on different platforms, and we had a very close look at the online activities of other airports around the world. As it turned out, there were some mostly smaller airports who already used social media to interact with their passengers and update them about flight status and special offers.
However, we felt like there was still a big unused potential. So we decided to find out how people are actually using social media when traveling. We identified 15 people within our global network of young achievers who are both avid social media users and frequent travelers. we talked extensively with them, asking not only about their social media usage when traveling, but also about the features and services they felt were lacking most from the airports they visited.
The result wasn’t a social media strategy in the narrow sense, but rather a broader set of recommendations on how to make the airport truly “2.0″: Not limited to using social media as a mere communication and marketing tool, but rather aimed at linking online presence and overall customer experience.
Voices of the city
The fascinating thing about social media is how deeply it integrates into people’s everyday lives. People talk about what they think, what they do, and where they are, creating a buzzing ecosystem of information snippets. Cities as defining social and cultural spaces in many people’s lives are thus an important topic in these conversations. A city interested in shaping and sharpening its image can profit a lot from engaging in these discussions.
For a major European city, Sandbox developed various ideas to use social media to improve the city’s communication towards different stakeholders. We presented case studies of social media use by other cities, using research and experience from various Sandboxers living and working in these cities, and analyzed online conversations about or from the city.
Based on this, we outlined strategic recommendations and created ideas for each of them. Our thinking was to not only establish a presence for the city on social media sites, but also creating a platform for aggregating and hosting the social media «voices» of the city, thereby creating a form of digital melting pot.
