Flight Center: The growth of Social Media

By Arnia Kiara Oosthuizen

Today, we had a visit from Flight Centre's social media manager, Mercia Lampen, who came to our Communication class to talk to us about the importance of social media and digital marketing.

Mercia Lampen gave the presentation about the importance of social media. She is the Social Media Manager of Flight Centre. What makes her even greater is that she was also a Communication student here at the North-West University of Potchefstroom. Her journey in social media simply began when she started helping family and co-workers to become involved on Facebook and other platforms. She then later started helping more and more people and now she is teaching big companies like MTN, how to manage their social media profiles.

The rate at which social media is growing, is fascinating! They have shared the following two videos on YouTube and afterward put it on other social media platforms, without even paying for marketing. They relied on word-of-mouth or should I rather say world-of-mouth. Give them a look!

These ads make me want to travel, while I'm still young. But that is besides the point. I am fascinated by Flight Centre's social media presence! They are everywhere on every possible platform you can think of.
They are also very  good with their Social Media Marketing-

"The process of gaining traffic,attention and interaction with customers through social media" (Part of the presentation that Mercia gave).

For example: If you're in Google and you start to search for flights, their name pops up first because they pay a lot of money, but even without paying for ads, their website is listed first. It takes approximately 6 months for a website to be on top of the list. But you have to list the right keywords and keep your content up to date, for your website to stay on top of the list.

The social media marketing platforms which they use are:

• Social network
• Blogs 
• Micro-blogs 
• Customer rating sites
• Online video websites
• Digital photo websites

They have to pay to use these social media marketing platforms, but it pays off because they have almost 100 00 likes on Facebook and 4 100 followers on Twitter. There is benefits by using Facebook:

• Discoverable: When people search for you on Facebook, they’ll be able to find you.

• Connected: Have one-on-one conversations with your customers, who can like your Page, read your posts and share them with friends, and check in when they visit.

• Timely: Your Page can help you reach large groups of people frequently, with messages tailored to their needs and interests.

• Insightful: Analytics on your Page will give you a deeper understanding of your customers and your marketing activities

There are many ways to use social media marketing for the benefit of the company, but the best and most reliable source for millennials, like me, is word-of-mouth! We would rather believe our friends than an ad telling us how great they are, but to create word-of-mouth one first has to do some advertising to get the people talking.

Today's presentation has taught me that you can succeed anywhere with your passion. Mercia has a passion for social media and that, has and is, making her successful in her job. What an inspiration!

Thank you, Mercia, for the great presentation, for your time and inspiring us to get more involved in social media, because it truly is the future of any and all companies. I have learned so much, for example, that you can create your own job description in a company if you are passionate about it.

Today's presentation has stirred-up the wanderlust in me again! I want to travel each and every corner of the earth three times, then I'll be content and then I can kick the bucket. Flight Centre, I'll be one of your VIP's because I'll be travelling so much with your help!

*This is not a paid for advertisement.