Aerospace eBusiness

Business Aviation and Social Media Survey Results: 5 Findings and 5 Opportunities November 5, 2009

Posted by ludozone in Aerospace, FaceBook, Internet Marketing, LinkedIn, Social Media, Twitter, eBusiness Applications/Services.
Tags: Aerospace, BizAv, eBusiness, Social Media, Twitter
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Based on the great success of the Social Media session at the recent NBAA annual event, I decided to further explore the topic with the business aviation audience through a very quick survey. The purpose was to quantify participation, catalog the interest, and collect (anonymous) demographics.

The survey was designed as a collaborative effort and then posted online for 5 business days. Participation was solicited mostly via Twitter, but also through posts in LinkedIn discussion boards. The complete result summary is available for download here (PDF). You can also contact me if you want the raw data in Excel. After reviewing the survey results, here are the 5 findings and 5 opportunities I discovered:

MY FINDINGS:

1. Contrary to many reports, 73% of respondents indicate that social media platform access is NOT blocked at work. However, companies that prevent access generally do it for all social media sites except for LinkedIn. Only 41% of companies have a Social Media policy.
2. LinkedIn is the premier e-Networking platform amongst business aviation professionals. Over 91% of respondents use it, but they indicated that looking for job postings was the least important use. They mostly use it to connect with colleagues and customers.
3. Social Media is used in the executive suite. 60% of respondents were at a Director level or above. 57% were 40 year old or over.
4. Twitter ranks highest amongst the platforms used by companies. Although it seems like all platforms are used fairly evenly.
   
5. Companies have added social media as an additional news/marketing channel. 67% of respondents indicate that publishing news is the most important use of social media platform, followed by marketing/promotion (44%). A full 48% indicate that recruiting is the least important use of Social Media.

Did you spot something else in the survey results? Do you have your own take? Please send me your feedback or post comments on this post and I’ll add it to this list.

OPPORTUNITIES:

1. Business Aviation is embracing social media at a good pace, probably faster than the rest of the A&D industry. Structuring the communications and properly combining websites, LinkedIn and Twitter will continue to be the trend. More can be done to use blogs as only 36% of respondents indicated their companies use them.
2. The best way to combat the perception that social media is for kids to play with their friends on FaceBook is to do two things. First, as John Keller (Chief editor, Military & Aerospace Electronics) discussed in a recent blog, start calling it e-Networking. When social media is used for business, e-Networking is really its purpose. Second, get your executives to start using e-Networking effectively.
3. I am a big believer in using e-Networking to enhance industry events and conferences. However, it seems like NBAA missed an opportunity, as most respondents indicated that the use of social media platforms made NO Difference in their experience of the event. There is much to be done in this area.
4. E-Networking is about interaction and conversation. Only 35% of respondent said that soliciting ideas was the most important use of social media for their company. I think that e-networking is about sharing and collaborating not lecturing or selling. For example, companies should move away from looking at Twitter as another channel by which to distribute press releases. It is much more than that.
5. Industry media and associations can take the lead in transforming the industry by facilitating the dialogue and the sharing of information through e-Networking platforms. Aerospace and Defense seems stuck in a “chicken and egg” loop: companies don’t use social media because no other company is using it. This survey shows that it is not true and that others are indeed using it. We need more opportunities to educate and encourage the industry.

I would like to thank the people that dialogued with me before and during the survey. Also, I would like to thank the tweeples that helped soliciting survey answers: @AWyss, @AvWeekBenet, @nonnyjorris, @NBAA, @CDHeisermann, @CutterAviation, @AeroPR, @ShowalterFlying, @GretemanGroup, @HeisteComm, @kevinmerritt, @FlightGlobal, @AviationWeek. What started as an experiment actually provided very interesting results. I would have liked more responses, but I wanted to run this survey as a Social Media platform experiment to validate its use as an interactive medium for our industry.

I would love to hear your feedback on this survey or on other surveys you think would be interesting. Please do not hesitate to contact me.