In February, Neset Dereli was at the Ploshchad Revolyutsii Metro station in Moscow, where he spotted a dog’s statue where the nose was clearly worn out. He realised that it was because you’re supposed to be showered with good luck by rubbing the nose. Instead of just sharing this travel tip with his Facebook friends or over Whatsapp, he submitted as an entry it to the Turkish Airlines “Widen Your World” blog.
He could do that because he works with the airline, and this is their latest attempt to add value to the travel experience, through a crewsourced blog – where all the destination tips are added by the staff of the airline.
“Widen Your World” blog – Crewsourcing the content
While a number of airlines have engaging blogs, most contain articles about destinations and travel by a syndicate of writers, or from the inflight magazine. Turkish Airlines has a number of its staff from various departments contributing content. Instead of being delegated the task, most of the contributors are volunteers.
Turkish Airlines tells us that the content strategy entails prioritising the top destinations for the airline, and then asking the volunteers to submit content on their favourite destinations. They may submit five entries, or just one. Some can be planned, and others impromptu.
Why employees, you may wonder. That’s because airline employees – crew and non-crew alike – are some of the most widely travelled individuals and have lots of stories to share. And this is a good outlet, powered by the airline they work with. The title of the blog is also aligned with the airline’s new brand positioning that has the tagline “Widen your world”.
The blog is very much like a TripAdvisor, created by Turkish Airlines employees for their passengers. What we enjoyed about the blog were bite sized travel nuggets, which are simple to add for the employees on the fly, and easy to digest for the travellers.
Thinking Differently about aviation marketing
Turkish Airlines has made a good start with their crewsourced blog. And at SimpliFlying, we like to think differently about aviation marketing. So we thought of a few more ideas on what the next iteration of the blog can look like, as other airlines seek inspiration from Turkish. Here are a few thoughts:
A mobile app: When I travel, I seldom have time to plan my itinerary ahead of time. Perhaps the airline can have tips from this blog available in a mobile app version, which when turned on, auto-detects my location and brings up the tips for where I am. That would be impressive.
Embeddable posts: Posts can currently be shared immediately on Twitter and Facebook. Perhaps the blog posts can be made embeddeble, so that travel bloggers and other websites may use them to inform as well.
Crew interaction: Crewsourced tips are supposed to add a personality to the brand – so how about taking it to another level and allowing conversations between travelers and the airline staff? If I’m at the Moscow station and can’t locate the dog, perhaps I can message Neset and ask him where exactly he found it!
All of these ideas would lead to further engagement between Turkish Airlines and the travellers. They would value the tips more. They’d build a relationship with the staff, whether or not they have flown the airline in the past. Some would even buy tickets!
Overall, it’s a good effort by Turkish Airlines and it is heartening to see airlines opening up the treasure trove of knowledge that lies amidst their staff for the world.
What do you think of the blog? We’d love to hear your thoughts on how airlines can better leverage the power of the crowd, in the Comments and over on Twitter (@simpliflying).
Full disclosure: Turkish Airlines is a current SimpliFlying consulting client, though we did not work on this blog with them.
The post Turkish Airlines “Widen Your World” blog shares crewsourced destination tips with travellers appeared first on Simpliflying and was written by Shashank Nigam.
Author information
Shashank Nigam
CEO at SimpliFlying
Shashank Nigam is the CEO of SimpliFlying and a globally sought-after consultant, speaker and thought-leader on airline branding and customer engagement strategy. He is also the youngest winner of the Global Brand Leadership Award and has addressed senior aviation executives globally, from Chile to Canada and from Sydney to San Francisco.
Shashank's perspectives have found their way into major media outlets, including CNN Travel, CNBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg UTV, Mashable and in leading publications like Airline Business, ATW, Aviation Week, and others.
Shashank studied Information Systems Management and Business Management at Singapore Management University and Carnegie Mellon University. Hailing from India, he splits his time between Singapore and Vancouver, among other cities.
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