Nuts About Southwest

How can an airplane company remain engaging and attract attention in the media? Look at Southwest, they broadened their influence and jumped into the blogosphere! Why would an airline need a blog? When most just want to find the cheapest flight to take them to thier next destination – Let’s see how Southwest is tapping into their ‘nutty’ side and how they’re optimizing their company by using all of their tools and creative resources. Maybe having your head in the clouds will provide some inspiration and you can read and contribute to the blog!

Southwest Airlines created a blog they like to call ‘Nuts About Southwest’ – where customers have the opportunity to take a peek inside the culture and operations of Southwest Airlines. The blog is used to give readers and customers an inside look into the company of Southwest and provide an area for interaction and engagement.

There is a crew of bloggers that represent a mix of employees throughout the company, who provide various content and activity on their blog. The goal is to build a personal relationship between bloggers and customers. Their aim for the blog is founded on participation and communication. Southwest strives to keep their blog interesting, diverse, and multi-sided. They thrive off of customer interaction and participation, and they urge individuals to post their thoughts, comments, suggestions, and questions that will be interesting to other readers and participants.

They have the blog organized by categories where you can find the latest posts, stories from the heart, learning to fly stories, and promotional stories. I like that they’ve broken down their blog so that it is easily accessible for you to view content of your choice and find stories with related content.

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Things I think are valuable from their blog:

Building Relationships

Their blog is used specifically for engagement and communication with their customers, which in turn builds relationships with these customers. This allows customers to feel valued and build trust for the company because they feel known and heard. This also allows for the company to create a strong community online with their customers. These personal relationships and meaningful conversations are a must for companies and is fundamental for success, and Southwest is doing this well.

Being Authentic

The blog allows for their voice to be heard from a variety of different people in an authentic and genuine way. The company shows that they have nothing to hide with their open dialogue throughout their blog. Through interactions made on the blog, the brand is able to be transparent and build trusting relationships. They clearly represent the brand and what is stands for by being authentic in each of their posts!

Being Versatile

The company was able to step out and reach a wider range of people with their blog. This show that that are using all tools available to them to gain feedback and tell success stories, while building and growing trust and engagement with their brand. Their social media strategy is impressive and being maximized to its full ability. The blog also incorporates many forms of media in their posts to keep the content entertaining. They include videos, pictures, polls, and other various tools in their posts.

Customer Friendly

Everyone is a part of the crew with this blog! Blog posts can be created by the editorial team, employees throughout Southwest, or even airline customers and users. Customers have the ability to create an account on the website and interact with Southwest bloggers and other readers. Customers can also send in stories, experiences, and interesting encounters or adventures. The best part of this, is that the company listens! They are prepared to respond to their customers in good or bad instances.

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I love the creativity and ‘catchiness’ of their name! The only downfall of the blog is the design. I feel that it is bland and plain, but it stays in scheme with their overall website. I think they could do a better job of making it more trendy and make the visibility more attractive.

Overall, the Nuts About Southwest blog stays up-to-date and continues to evolve their media strategy in new imperative ways, as well as add new features to update their blog and keep it fresh and engaging. Here is one of the latest posts that I’ve read and enjoyed because it showed the heart and impact behind the brand. Check out the full nutty blog here! Are you nuts about Southwest?

On a side note, Southwest recently informed us that they will no longer be giving away peanuts on their flights as a precaution and concern for those with allergies. Do you think they will change/update their blog name or keep it to honor the tradition?