The buzz is palpable! After a heady round of nominations (69 nominees in 10 days) we’re down to the fun bit – the real voting to shortlist the Top 3 who’ll be invited to Amsterdam on October 10th for the 2nd Annual SimpliFlying Awards for Excellence in Social Media. Amazingly, we received more than 5000 votes in the first 36 hours from more than 1400 cities across... 

The rush of a conference. New ideas, new peers, free stuff. But for all our positive thoughts and company changing bravado, something happens on the flight home. To prevent the post-conference drop, here are 13 things to do after a conference. posted in How To by Troy Thompson Leave A CommentPopular: Introducing mark, the Answer Report A project five years in the making, mark is the new standard for... 

As I checked in on Foursquare at Washington Dulles Airport this morning on my way to Chicago, I couldn’t help but notice the following display at one of the idle United gates: In light of the article I wrote in this space a few months ago, I must say I was quite proud. Since I wrote that first article, UA has merged their Twitter presence with Continental (and are actually still... 

Social technologies are gaining huge traction among airlines. There’s simply no denying it. A couple of months ago, we released an infographic that showed how airlines are dedicating resources to social media. Most major airlines, according to the infographic, already have social media teams in place – most are managing cross-departmental strategies. Some even have plans... 

It’s official. As of July 2011, there are 191 airlines on Twitter, while only 179 airlines have loyalty programs. The first loyalty program came into existence 30 years ago, in the form of AAdvantage by American Airlines, while the first airlines on Twitter joined just 5o months ago: jetBlue and Delta in May 2007. And what a journey it has already been! SimpliFlying is back with... 

Numerous destinations and cities are working through pros and cons of social media. For New Mexico Tourism the adoption of social media is an ongoing project, but progress is being made. posted in DMOs by Troy Thompson Leave A CommentPopular: 5 Questions: eTourism Summit A highlight on the busy tourism / technology calendar, the eTourism Summit has a history of great speakers and better networking.... 

It is now more than ten days that I have played around Google+ – the new social networking site that Google recently launched – and I have to say that I really like it. Honestly, I have to admit that I never warmed up to Facebook. I use it, my friends are there and I share things, but I have always felt a bit uneasy to share things with my family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances etc.... 

Twitter and conferences…you either love it or hate it. For those tweeting from a tourism conference, here are 7 tips to make your tweets more effective for you, your fellow attendees and your followers. posted in How To by Troy Thompson Leave A CommentPopular: How to Tweet at a Tourism Conference Twitter and conferences…you either love it or hate it. For those tweeting from a tourism conference,... 

SimpliFlying is back with the Monthly Twitter Report (in partnership with Eezeer) for June 2011 in continuation with our coverage and analysis of the dynamic social media landscape for airlines. A number of facts are immediately clear from this report: Airlines are using Twitter more than ever before. The number of tweets increased by 39% from March 2011 to June 2011. That’s... 

Editor’s Note: A day before I spoke about putting the joy back into the airport experience at the Annual ACI Conference in Lisbon, Philippe Scheimann from SOSTravelers.com suggested that he wanted to write a guest article as a follow up to his earlier ‘How to empower stranded travelers‘. We decided that that the next article could be on how to help airports turn stranded...