Social listening insights from Hong Kong's top airlines

There's a lot of data out there, in places where you don't expect it to be. One of these places is on the social media pages of airlines. We decided to look at the social media comments of 12 of Hong Kong's top airlines.

You've probably heard some variation of a brand's marketing lead proclaiming that "Brands need to listen" on social media. Well, there's some truth to that.

What customers say on your social media channels are the unfiltered truth. The good, the bad - you'll get it all.

We did some digging, and here's what we found.

Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's home carrier gets made fun of...a lot.

Here's something the SCMP won't tell you. Local Hong Kongers have an inside joke for the airline. They call it..."Because" Airlines (a rough translation from Chinese). The name comes at a time where Cathay Pacific is no longer the world's top airline. In reality it's the beginning of a very long sentence...

"Because of poor management, Cathay Pacific has dropped from the world's best to 5th airline." - affectionately referred to as 因航 by Hong Kong locals.

So much, that even the airline has made fun of itself in a recent social media post. The ‪#‎因航雞卷‬
has risen to fame.

Here's the post:

https://www.facebook.com/cathaypacificHK/videos/1202834019860299/

Budget carriers AirAsia and Scoot HK did particularly well - budget airlines aren't always bad.

In our analysis, overall people seemed to be happy with the service, timeliness, flight schedules and quality of these two budget airlines.

In the more premium airline category, Japan Airlines received overwhelmingly more positive comments than any other airline.

Passengers were eager to share their stories of where the staff went above and beyond their call of duty. In the office we call this the "fruit story" where a passenger shared her experience with a JAL officer.

She had left her fruit box on a bus on the way to the airport, and notified the officer. The officer quickly arranged for the bus company to return to the airport, and within 20 minutes the fruit box was returned to her.

So in conclusion, yes - people like to complain on social media, but the good stuff is shared too. So listen to what your customers say on social media - or else no one will.

Struggling with social? At Catalyst we've helped world-class brands such as ghd with their social strategies. To learn more, give us a shout at info@whycatalyst.com