Aerospace eBusiness

Boeing changes communication strategy with new website, twitter accounts April 20, 2010

If you read my post about the Social Media Score Card for the Top 10 Aerospace Companies, you noticed my lament at the absence of Boeing on the scene. So imagine my excitement when Boeing actually launched not one but three Twitter accounts last week, followed this week by a major website redesign.

Talking to Todd Blecher, Communications Director at The Boeing Company, you get a sense of why they waited to jump into the Social Media mania: “We have been observing Twitter for a while and have learned a lot from Boeing experiments such as UnitedStatesTanker.com and Randy’s Journal. We did not want to rush into Social Media platforms without having something interesting to say. Simply getting on Twitter or on FaceBook is not a productive Communication strategy in itself.”

Boeing felt that with a million unique visitors per month, Boeing.com needed to be the hub on which a new strategy could be rooted. “But we wanted to make sure that if we brought people to the website via Twitter and other means, the experience was not boring or targeted only at our obvious audiences such as airlines and government. We wanted to create a reputational enhancement strategy that will better the opinion of Boeing amongst other audiences such as future employees and the general public.”

The new website is organized around a handful of featured stories that focus on the people and customers of Boeing rather than just the technology it produces. This gives the company a more “human” face rather than the colder and glossy corporate feel it had before. “We wanted our people to be the voice of our topics”, said Blecher. The stories will be updated on a weekly basis by an editorial team of about a dozen people across both the Commercial Airplanes and Defense business units. The new website also features a social media “share” button on many pages allowing users to propagate Boeing’s message throughout the Digital Environment. Finally, the “comments” function was added at the bottom of the story pages, a major change for the site. Randy’s Journal, the Commercial Airplanes pioneering blog, has more details about the other new features. My only suggestion would be to feature the Twitter accounts on the home page, something I am sure they will fix soon.

@BoeingCorporate, @BoeingAirplanes, and @BoeingDefense share the load on Twitter. I like the tone and direction of the twitter feeds so far. They have not just used them to simply repeat their press release headlines. They have actually provided interesting insight (e.g. volcano ash impact), they have retweeted third party stories, and they have actually responded to other tweets. All this shows me that they have done their homework before jumping in. Blecher indicated that they are trying to have a measured approach to twitter, trying to engage in interesting conversations and advocacy without creating an overwhelming information flow. I totally agree with this. If I want to get a company’s press releases, I’ll subscribe to their RSS feed, not their twitter feed.

I look forward to the next Boeing developments in the Digital Environment. Blecher indicated that they are considering a FaceBook presence as well as a stronger engagement during the major Aerospace events. “Although we feel that any Aerospace company has a great opportunity to use Social Media to enhance its presence at a show like Farnborough, we remain prudent in our approach and might not be ready to take full advantage of it this year.” This prudence is reflected when I asked about YouTube. Blecher indicated that Boeing was uncomfortable with the platform because they could not control what was displayed beside their videos on YouTube. “We are getting more open with the new website and twitter accounts, but we are not ready to turn our communication landscape into the Wild West.”

I believe this is the right approach for Boeing and they have the right idea. It is a major change for them and I applaud their initiative. Let’s see what they can make of it and how it resonates with audiences. What do you think of it?