Last week I spent 22 hours on two United Airlines flights (Los Angeles to Tokyo; Tokyo to Los Angeles).
Each inflight movie was prefaced by a brief animated entreaty to “Find Us On Facebook” and another to “Follow Us On Twitter.”
In other words, two commercials. Each commercial with a single, specific Call To Action.
And absolutely no reason given to take either action.
Why should I, the passenger, find United Airlines on Facebook? Why should I follow them on Twitter?
Dunno.
United spent the money to make those quickie commercials…and is getting no return on its investment.
I don’t know how many passengers have seen those little “commercials.” But I guarantee that — with the possible exception of curious airline or social media marketing professionals or students — not a single passenger has looked for UA’s Facebook page or followed them on Twitter.
Hey, but wait a minute, Dan! You’ve got a Facebook “badge” and a “Follow Me On Twitter” link on this blog! But you don’t give us any reason to take action….
Correct. The Call To Action on today’s blog is to read this posting.
The Facebook and Twitter links are there for readers who like the blog enough to think, “Hmmm. Maybe I’ll check out his Facebook page or see what he tweets about.”
To take either action, all they need to do is click on a link — which you’re not able to do while watching the United video at 32,000 feet.
If my primary goal was to get readers to go to my Facebook page I might say something like, “Hey, you’ll find a bunch of cool videos and special articles about radio and voice overs that you won’t find anywhere else…”
If my primary goal was to get readers to follow me on Twitter, I might say…Uh…Actually, I haven’t yet figured out why anyone follows me on Twitter. But you get the idea….
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Good point. At corporate level, every decision made must have a solid objective with an effective execution. It’s like a radio advert saying [BEGIN] Come to Hooters! [END] Okay, bad example, but you get my point…
And by the way, I opened this page by clicking on a link you tweeted.
Just saying…
It’s the Social Network Bandwagon-syndrome: “Hey! We’re social networking. Of course, we don’t have a clue about how it’s supposed to work or why it does, but it’s cool, ya’ know?”
If UA would only take the time to think about why people social network, maybe they could come up with ads that are worth the money they spent on them.