Air Canada's Social Media Strategy

Examining Air Canada's Social Media 

   Air Canada is one of the leading competitors in the travel/transportation industry. With such a big brand they need to have a presence on as many social media outlets as possible.
Air Canada has accounts on:
- Facebook
- Instagram
- Pinterest
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Youtube

   The objective of this post is to observe how Air Canada utilizes its’ social media accounts to reach out to their consumers.

   One of the main things to consider when looking at a business’s social media accounts is how much they actually utilize the account. Air Canada has 1,070,009 likes on their Facebook page. There they post things such as updates in their industry, share their content from other sites such as their Youtube channel, as well as add information regarding any sales that are occurring. Air Canada posts approximately once every day, sometimes more than one post per day. They monitor their posts closely seeing as they respond regularly to comments or concerns that their consumers may have. Their posts are usually to gain interest from consumers or to generate interest in their services.

 

Air Canada Facebook Page (Air Canada,2016)

   On Twitter Air Canada has 195k tweets and regularly replies to tweets that mention them. They have a follower count of 358k and usually reply to only bad comments or questions left by the consumers. They do sometimes respond to positive comments but not as regularly has the negative ones. Air Canada tweets roughly 3 times a day and it usually consists of deals, updates, and replies to people.

Air Canada Twitter Page (Air Canada,2016)

   Their Instagram account has scenic pictures as well as plane photographs. Air Canada posts roughly 2 times per week and it’s usually about their services as well as throwback posts showing their consumers how far they have come. They have 611 posts, 182k followers and are following 295.

Air Canada Instagram Post (Air Canada, 2016)

  Lastly, Air Canada's Youtube account has around 8,283 subscribers as well as 198 videos. These are usually advertisements used to catch the attention of consumers. This social media account is probably one of the least used by the company. They go through periods where they use the account a lot, but recently they haven't posted any sort of content in a month.

    In conclusion Air Canada has a strong Social Media strategy. They share similar posts on all their social media outlets, they respond and post frequently on most of them as well as have a good follower base on each individual site.

Sources
Air Canada. (2016). Air Canada Instagram. Retrieved February 27, 2016, from https://www.instagram.com/aircanada/
Air Canada. (2016). Air Canada Twitter. Retrieved February 27, 2016, from https://twitter.com/AirCanada?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
 Air Canada. (2016). Air Canada Facebook. Retrieved February 27, 2016, from https://www.facebook.com/aircanada 

WestJet's Social Media Strategy

Analyzing WestJet's Social Media 

WestJet is a Canadian airline which originated as cheaper alternative to other Canadian airlines. It has a presence on tons of social media outlets. These outlets include;
- Facebook
- Instagram
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Pinterest
- Youtube
and more!

   A company may have all these social media accounts but the real question is, do they utilize them to their full advantage?

   WestJet has 700,582 likes on their Facebook account. They don’t post every single day, usually once every second day or every few days. Their posts consist of shared media from WestJet’s other accounts like their Youtube as well as advertisements for deals on flights. Although they don’t have many likes on their page, they get hundreds of shares regularly on their posts. WestJet also takes time and responds regularly to comments and usually adds a more personal touch by adding the name of the individual who responded to the message.

WestJet Facebook Reply (WestJet, 2016)

   Another Social Media site that I analyzed was their Twitter account. Their Twitter account has roughly 592k followers and 134k tweets. These tweets consist of sales, replies, news, various updates and more! These tweets are usually used to generate interest in their service for consumers to later make a purchase. WestJet’s posting patterns are really all over the place. Some days they tweet twice per day and then they may stop and not tweet anything for 2 days.

WestJet Twitter Page (WestJet,2016)

    Most people know WestJet as having great advertisements that tug on the heart strings. All these advertisements can be found on their Youtube channel. They currently have 56,220 subscribers and 292 videos. They post a video at least once every week and have even included categories so people can find certain videos about any location or promotion.

 Lastly WestJet’s Instagram account has 513 posts in total, 56.6k followers and follows 349. The most recent post that they shared was posted 2 weeks ago. Which tells you they don’t use Instagram as one of the main platforms for communicating with their consumers.

   

WestJet Instagram (WestJet,2016)

  

    In Conclusion WestJet uses a wide variety of social media accounts but doesn’t necessarily post as often as they should. They also don’t really coordinate what they post on each site which can be a huge disadvantage. This is due to some individuals only following one of their social media accounts and missing out on information that may have been posted to another outlet that could be beneficial or targeted towards them. Overall WestJet has a wide number of social media accounts that they can use to target various target markets, however they don't post frequently enough to fully utilize the power of social media.

Sources
WestJet. (2016). WestJet Twitter. Retrieved February 27, 2016, from https://twitter.com/WestJet?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
WestJet. (2016). WestJet Instagram. Retrieved February 27, 2016, from https://www.instagram.com/westjet/?hl=en
WestJet. (2016). WestJet Facebook. Retrieved February 27, 2016, from https://www.facebook.com/westjet 

Air Canada vs WestJet

Search Engine Optimization is a very important marketing tactic that organizations should strive to improve upon to further themselves in their industry. Today we are going to compare Air Canada’s SEO to WestJet’s.

WestJet website screenshot

Air Canada website screenshot

Keywords

The biggest thing when it comes to SEO Is how high your brand ranks when you type certain keywords into a search engine like Google. 

Air Canada’s keywords include; Air Canada, Aeroplan, Reservations, Book Online, Air Canada Flights, Airline Tickets, Airfare deals
WestJet’s keywords include; Buy Airline Tickets, Book Flights, Find Cheap Airfare, last minute flights and seat sales with WestJet. Book hotels and vacations with WestJet Vacations.

They both use different keywords, some of which pertain to their specific company (ie. Aeroplan), but some of the keywords are related like cheap airfare/airfare deals. The number of times a keyword pops up throughout the site allows for a better SEO. Both sites used their keywords between 0-5 times throughout, but Air Canada had two keywords which were Air Canada and Aeroplan that was used 11-15 times.

In regards to where they put their keywords it really varied. Air Canada’s keywords usually appeared in alternative texts, keyword section, anchor text, title and URL. WestJet’s was located in their keyword section, URL and title.

Upload Speed

Site upload speed is very important for a company’s website. This is because people don’t have much patience anymore and aren’t willing to spend more than 3 seconds on a page, or wait for content to load. WestJet loaded significantly faster than Air Canada (approx. 5 seconds to load media content via Air Canada). Air Canada’s site itself loaded quickly, but the media took way longer than WestJet’s did.

Alt Text & Captions

Although both airlines did use alternate texts throughout the site, WestJet’s were stronger. They were longer and more descriptive as well as found in more areas around the site. An example of an alt text WestJet put on their site was “Nothing says I love you like a sale on flights to all destinations within Canada and the U.S., and select destinations to Mexico and the Caribbean”. An example of an alt text that Air Canada used was “!” and “Valentines Sale”.

Air Canada also included no captions to their photographs, where WestJet used one almost under every photograph. An example would be “Hawaii, It’s closer than ever”.

Call To Action

 Both Air Canada and WestJet has the same call to action, this was “book a flight”.

Anchor text

The anchor text used throughout the air Canada site was “Contact Us, Cancelled flight service, Travel Alerts”. On WestJet's site they used “Contact Us, Book Using WestJet Dollars” as their anchor text.

Mobility

Both airlines have their own App available to smart phone users, but only WestJet has a mobile site available.

Overall Ranking

Air Canada ranked 7^th under the keyword “cheap airfare”. A lot of the other keywords brought up a ton of travel websites that weren’t owned by other airlines.
WestJet ranked 1^st under the keyword “Seat deals”. For their other keywords many travel websites popped up.

Conclusion

In conclusion, both Air Canada and WestJet have good SEO. They both have areas that they can improve upon to further enhance their SEO and rankings. Air Canada should look into creating a mobile site, enhancing media upload speed,and WestJet could put their keywords in more areas around the site itself. In my opinion the Airline that flew the highest in regards to this SEO search analysis would be WestJet. This is due to their excellent use of alt texts, overall site design and layout, mobility options, and more!