Twitter certainly seems to be the Social Media platform du jour. Candidates for the 2008 Presidential election are jumpingon board offering followers campaign missives, and Joseph Jaffe reported on Friday that even Delta is Twittering. While it’s no surprise that some of the leading Dems, who have been so quick to embrace social media, are on the Twitter bandwagon, a large corporation like Delta jumping into the fray is certainly noteworthy. (Especially when that corporation is an industry that generally incites hatred from its customers - think the JetBlue Hostage
blog…or the last time your flight was delayed for some unknown reason and you raged at whoever you could get a hold of on your cell.)
So far, Delta’s Twitters (which are not confirmed as “official”), cover a variety of travel/Delta-related topics and also respond to other Twitter-ers. Jaffe covers all of the noteworthy exchanges in his post, but here is a brief glimpse:
“thinking about how to reduce your time spent at JFK: http://tinyurl.com/ywr3o5 10:55 AM May 10, 2007″ [Link to WSJ article, “Delta Overhaul Aims to Extend Global Reach.”
In response to Steve, “Boarding Delta 670 to Boston. 11:27 AM May 10, 2007,” Delta responded, “@stevegarfield - enjoy your flight!”
In response to Steve Rubel, “This fake? Seems like it. http://twitter.com/deltaair… 10:09 AM May 10, 2007,” Delta responded, “@steverubel - consider me ‘unofficial’. Kinda like cnnbrk, except I’m not a robot. 10:27 AM May 10, 2007 “
A la GM’s Fastlane blog, I think that Delta’s early adoption of Twitter is a wise corporate communications move - though it should be interesting to keep an eye on the content and see if it continues in the information sharing/back-and-forth vein or if it becomes a repository for consumer bitching.
Even if Twitter isn’t here to stay Delta (or whoever is behind this) gets points for timely experimentation with a buzz worthy social media tool.
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