As American Airlines moves to integrate social media across the business, it faces some significant challenges, writes Pamela Whitby

Yesterday we heard how American Airlines’ social media strategy has matured since it embraced the channel over three years ago. Now as the airline moves to integrate social across the business, it is coming against some barriers. We find out what those are from Jonathan Pierce, director of social media at American Airlines who has this to say: “This is just such a huge topic. I could go on forever.”

Barrier 1: Hiring the right people

In an interview with Pierce last year, finding the right people was a major challenge. In spite of the fact that there is no shortage of qualified candidates applying for social media jobs, this remains an issue. The challenge, he says, is hiring successful people that have the right breadth and flexibility to understand social media and the importance of customer service, people who can think on the spot, are collaborative, can react efficiently and so on. “That’s a tall order,” says Pierce. On the plus side, American has a strong team, which is helped by a dedicated training programme of up to six weeks, which spans a range of topics that help employees to become the face of the brand.

Barrier 2: Existing technology infrastructure

Every company is unique but the big question, says Pierce is, “how do you join up social data which is very free form and very unique is constantly evolving comp with existing technology infrastructure and the type of data you have there”.

Barrier 3: Competing priorities

Every business has many demands and requirements for investment. For social media teams, the challenge is getting social high up on that list for investment. So the role of the social media team today is changing. It’s not just about managing a customer service channel, its about proving the worth and value of social to the business. “What is needed is people who can have strategic conversations with management as well as folks who can fill day to day customer tasks,” says Pierce. This isn’t easy as it means competing against investment for legacy systems which have proven revenue benefit. “Social doesn’t have that same revenue output so it requires understanding from stakeholders internally that this is not just a channel but a strategic change in how customers do business with the brand,” explains Pierce. This is an important barrier to integration and can’t happen over night.

Barrier 4: Evolving customer behaviour

Just when you think you have understood your customer, expect a shift in behaviour. Not only are brands seeing how customers use social media change, they also face the challenge of keeping up with the evolving business models of each different social network. How stable are they? Will they still be in business in six months time? “Some aspects of social media is out of your hands but when it’s evolving so quickly and you don’t know where companies are going, that’s a barrier to integration,” says Pierce.

One mistake some brands have made is jumping too quickly when a new social media channel appears on the scene, instead of waiting until customer behaviour settles down. “It’s about knowing where to put your chips,” says Pierce. While this is different for every business, for airlines Twitter has emerged as the strongest channel. In fact 75% of all the airline’s social engagement is on Twitter. This is mainly down to the fact that most major media channels now use Twitter as a newsfeed. For American, Facebook is a much deeper channel which allows it to tell a story behind the brand. “The two are complimentary but the volume is on Twitter,” says Pierce.

Barrier 5: Education and consistent metrics

Getting everyone to be on the same page when using social tools is another challenge and requires careful training. According to Pierce, you can’t measure social with one consistent metric across every channel because they are all so different. “All have different ways of comparing data and different success factors to consider,” he says. So it’s important to establish metrics for each social network that are understood by the social team, by stakeholders and by each business unit. You also need to talk a language that C-suite executives will understand. “They don’t want to talk about reach of a Facebook page they want to talk about how social is impacting sentiment towards the brand. They want to hear what are customers saying now about the brand versus what they were saying last month,” says Pierce.

To hear practical tips for overcoming barriers to integration join us in San Francisco at Social Media and Mobile Strategies for Travel 2014 (Mar 17-18) where Jonathan Pierce, Director, Social Media, American Airlines will be speaking.