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Website (http://www.jetblue.com/)

• There's a "Contact Us" link at the top.
• Social media is listed at the bottom with number of followers/likes (not up-to-date though).
• There are 6 tabs to assist customers in booking flights ("Plan A Trip," "Manage Flights," "Where We Jet," "Travel Information," "TrueBlue")

SoFly (http://www.jetblue.com/SoFly/)

• This is a section on the JetBlue website where customers can post their photos & share travel tips.
• The SoFly section has interesting facts about JetBlue with links so customers canrepost these facts on their social media accounts.
• This section also has a poll asking what customers do in the Caribbean (oneJetBlue destination).
• There are also quotes by customers.
• There's a link to apply for a job with JetBlue.
• This section resembles a Pinterest board (blocks of text and images that continueas you scroll down).
• Promotion of their hashtag (#JetBlueSoFly) is prominent in this section.

Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JetBlue)

• There are posts at least once or twice a day.
• This page has over a million likes.
• The page has almost two million visits.
• This page also has photo & video tabs.
• Most of the posts have a photo.
• There's also a section on the front page where people can see other people's posts that mention JetBlue.

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Hook:
Tell JetBlue where you want to fly

Audience Analysis:
The press will be invited to cover this event in the media, including Airways Magazine, as well as the U.S. Travel Association, which is the airline trade association. Celebrities who have previously flown with JetBlue will be invited to this event to generate interest and maintain their customer loyalty. Celebrities who accept will be given three free flights. A twitter contest will be held to tweet the your favorite thing about JetBlue. Select winners will be chosen and they will be invited to tour the new JetBlue headquarters and have lunch with the celebrities who attend.

Central Message:
JetBlue wants people to feel as though they are part of the JetBlue family by taking their opinions into account and counting their votes on the new destination.

Platforms:
The winning destination will be announced on the JetBlue blog to increase the number of views the blog receives. Twitter will also play a major role during the event as well as Facebook and Instagram.

SMS for event:
TrueBlue members can vote on the destination prior to the event. People will talk about this to their friends, which will generate interest among social groups. The voting information, such as where to vote, will be advertised on all their social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook. Attention will be drawn to the JetBlue blog where the winning destination will be posted. This destination will be announced at the event before it is posted on the blog.

JetBlue responds to most tweets with their Twitter account, so they will continue doing that. For instance, if a twitter follower posts a picture that says “Had a great time with JetBlue! Met Meryl Streep!” JetBlue can reply saying “So glad you had a great time!” JetBlue can also retweet positive tweets to make followers feel good and make them feel as if their tweets are important to JetBlue. JetBlue can take this interactive approach with Facebook and Instagram, responding to posts and re-posting some as well.

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JetBlue’s event features a tour of their new headquarters and a luncheon. The event will be exclusive to people who are invited, such as the press, the trade association (U.S. Travel Association), stockholders, and celebrities who have flown JetBlue. However, on social media, there will be a contest for select winners to attend this exclusive event where they have the opportunity to have lunch with celebrities. Celebrities who attend will be given 3 free JetBlue first-class tickets to any destination of their choice to show JetBlue’s appreciation of their support. The celebrities who RSVP that they will attend will be announced on social media. Prior to the event, TrueBlue members will be able to vote on the new JetBlue destination, which will be publicized on social media. The destination will be announced at the event and on the JetBlue blog.

The main social media platform that will be used is Twitter for the social media contest. JetBlue will encourage their TrueBlue customers to tweet what they love most about JetBlue and use a hashtag to group those tweets together. This expands the JetBlue name on Twitter, because whoever participates and tweets, their followers will see their tweets about what they love most about JetBlue. Therefore, it broadens JetBlue on Twitter to more than just their followers. JetBlue will then choose select tweets and invite the user (as long as they are a TrueBlue customer) to attend the event. Anyone on Twitter can also search for tweets that contain that hashtag and see every tweet that contains that hashtag. Before the social media contest, Twitter among other social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, will be used to encourage TrueBlue customers to vote on the new JetBlue destination. During the event itself, attendees can tweet about the event, using a hashtag, so people who aren’t attending the event can feel as if they’re there. To encourage tweets at the event, JetBlue will select a tweet from one attendee for a free JetBlue ticket to any destination of their choosing, including the new one that will be revealed at the event.

Throughout each step of the process, Hootsuite can be used to determine the success on social media. With Hootsuite, JetBlue can schedule to send tweets at the best time, which would be the time when the most people will see it. This will publicize the vote on the new JetBlue destination and after the social media contest to attend the event. All the social media accounts JetBlue has can be managed on Hootsuite as well. This will help when publicizing the vote on the new JetBlue destination, since this will be across various social media platforms. JetBlue can determine how many people click on the link to vote to determine which social media platform has the most active followers. Finding the platform with the most active followers is essential to promote customer interaction. In addition, Hootsuite allows you to target specific audiences with your social media posts. This will allow JetBlue to target their posts at people who enjoy traveling, which is their prime market. Hootsuite also provides custom profiles of their followers, which portrays the demographics of their followers and whoever favorites their tweets. In addition, Hootsuite offers a brand sentiment segment where JetBlue can see whether the interaction they’re receiving is positive, negative, or neutral. If the social media contest is a success, the brand sentiment segment should be mainly positive.

To evaluate the success of this campaign, I would record the brand sentiment each day at the same time and put it into a graph to hopefully see an increasing trend. Benchmarking this segment will generate the data for this curve. The steeper the curve, the more successful the campaign is. Hootsuite can extend beyond the event and assist JetBlue in the future. For instance, if they find that the most negative tweets are from businessmen complaining about crying babies on their flights, they might offer anyone who flies business class free headphones. Furthermore, Hootsuite can filter their social media newsfeeds to only show them posts that are of interest to them without having to scroll through the extra irrelevant posts. Finally, Hootsuite displays the trends. This relates to the social media contest, because if most people are posting about how they love the customer service JetBlue provides, this will show them the trending words. The social media contest will encourage community engagement, because people will be tweeting to JetBlue where their followers will see it, thus bringing them into the community. I would monitor the various aspects of Hootsuite throughout the campaign, but focusing on the brand sentiment segment and how many followers were gained throughout the campaign to see if other people’s tweets encouraged others to follow JetBlue.

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The airline industry is a profitable industry in the U.S. although it took a hit after 9/11. Airlines can generate a profit by transporting either passengers or cargo. After the recovery period after 9/11, which took years, and the slight impediment after the 2008 recession, the industry began resuming its position as one of the most developed and successful industries. The strengths and opportunities in this industry outweigh the weaknesses and threats, which suggests positive outcomes for airline companies in the future.

There are many strengths to the airline industry that make it so successful. One of these strengths is that consumer spending has increased since the 2008 recession, so more people can afford to travel (Brennan). Since more people are traveling and oil prices are decreasing, many airline companies have the flexibility to raise their rates without losing revenue. Another strength is that airlines have software now that can assist them in filling as many seats as possible (Brennan). By flying at maximum capacity for each flight, airlines can maximize profits. In addition, they have new yield-management software, which can predict the demand for certain flights (Brennan). Airlines can use this software to price the flights as high as possible according to the demand the software predicts. Another new form of technology that benefits the airline industry is that airlines have the capability to figure out how to cut routes to make their flights as direct as possible (Brennan). This allows them to save on fuel costs, thus increasing profit. Furthermore, airline travel is much faster than other forms of transportation (Brennan). With the U.S. being so large, it is much more efficient for consumers to choose airline travel as their form of travel. Finally, airlines are now offering more route options for consumers, so people are more inclined to travel by plane (Brennan).

While there are many positive aspects for being involved in the airline industry, there are also some weaknesses that hinder profit. For instance, airlines have increased the prices of their add-ons to combat lost revenues from the 2008 recession (Brennan). This discourages some consumers from purchasing these add-ons, such as checking in an additional bag. It might come to that extreme point where consumers with a lot of luggage may choose a different travel option if the cost of getting to their destinations are more significant to them than the time they will arrive at their destinations. Airlines are also trying to save by reducing meal options and other in-flight services (Brennan). This could have a similar effect where consumers may choose other travel options if they’re unsatisfied with any particular airline’s service. Another weakness is that airlines’ employees are expected to drop at an annual rate of 0.3% (Brennan). This could have numerous effects, such as a longer wait at any point in the airport terminal or consumers feeling like there’s not enough assistance to get them through the process of airline travel. In addition, the airline industry is a mature industry (Brennan). In other words, there is very little room for growth or entrance into the industry if the company is not already established. The only advancement would be by out-competing current competitors. Lastly, the development for aircraft machinery is declining (Brennan). This also supports the notion that the airline industry is mostly set, so there could be a lack of growth in the future.

Although there are suggestions that the airline industry has already reached full potential, there are many factors that relate to how airline companies could actually prosper further. One opportunity that airline industries have is that companies are merging (Brennan). This reduces the amount of competition and allows companies to maintain their low prices without risking profits. Another opportunity researchers observed was that major airlines suffered heavy losses during the 2008 recession, except for Southwest Airlines and JetBlue (Brennan). Both of these airlines do not have a charge for the first checked in bag, so this could indicate that this benefit for consumers could maintain customer loyalty even during tough times. Furthermore, researchers noticed success in the corporate world correlates with more flights purchased by business customers (Brennan). Since corporate profit is expected to increase in 2015, it is likely that more flights will be purchased by businessmen and businesswomen (Brennan). Similar to that prediction, researchers have found that consumers’ income correlates with the amount of tickets being purchased (Brennan). Like corporate profit, consumers’ income is also expected to increase in 2015, which suggests that more tickets will be purchased and airlines will increase their profits (Brennan). More people are expected to travel to the U.S. as well (Brennan). This could indicate positive results for the industry, because then there is a larger market. In addition, people in remote locations fly out of necessity (Brennan). The demand in this specific segment of the industry’s target market suggests potential profits in the future. Finally, researchers have predicted that the industry is expected to increase at a 1.5% rate to $154 billion over the next five years (Brennan).

Though the airline industry appears to be prospering, there are also many factors that could threaten this industry. For example, the aggressive price competition in this industry could eventually lead to some airline companies not even being able to compete without losing profits (Brennan). Another threat is that this industry is extremely dependent on oil prices, and they tend to fluctuate often and rarely remain steady (Brennan). One sharp increase could cost an airline company significant profit. The increasing freight rates could also cost some companies profit if the rates are high enough that businesses choose to ship through other means (Brennan). In addition, although corporate profit is expected to increase, indicating more businessmen and businesswomen will be traveling, many corporate people prefer video conferencing as opposed to traveling (Brennan). Finally, after 9/11, people were afraid to travel by plane (Brennan). Even after this subsided, many people are still genuinely afraid of flying. If another terrorist attack of this magnitude occurs, this could have disastrous results for this industry.

Overall, the airline industry is in a promising place with the strengths and opportunities outweighing the weaknesses and threats. Those weaknesses and threats, however, should not be taken lightly, since one significant factor could lead airline companies to bankruptcy. Researchers have predicted positive results for the airline industry in the future though. Therefore, the airline industry will most likely stay profitable for existing airline companies.

Works Cited
Brennan, Andy. “Domestic Airlines in the US.” IBIS World. IBIS World, Dec. 2014.Web. 18 Feb. 2015.