Air Canada vs. Delta Airlines on Twitter

Zixuan Liang

How often does each brand post?

Air Canada is highly active on Twitter and posts most of its content on weekdays. On a daily basis, the company can tweet 3 – 5 times. Since February 9, 2017, the company has increased its content on Twitter due to its 80^th anniversary. Delta Airlines has a higher activity on Twitter than Air Canada. The company is active both on weekdays and weekends. Besides, the company can post up to 6 tweets each day.

What content does each brand post?

Air Canada posts much content on Twitter in the form of pictures and videos. The information posted focuses mainly on the services provided by the company. For example, new services, travel routes and latest activities ("Air Canada (@AirCanada) | Twitter," 2017).

Delta Airlines posts its latest activities using pictures and videos. For example, the most recent post shows how the company supports Kelsea Ballerin for the GRAMMY Awards ("Delta (@Delta) | Twitter", 2017). Then, some of the content shows the best travel destinations for the airline.

Does each brand use 50/50 rule?

Air Canada does not apply 50/50 rule. Most of the content posted describes the company and services provided.

Delta Airlines uses the 50/50 rule. Half of the content posted describes the airline and its operations. The remaining posts focus on other issues such as nature, celebrities, and the general society.

Keywords used by either brand

Keywords employed by Air Canada are “diversity”, “fly the flag” and “landscape”. Delta Airline uses “proud”, “support” and “system” as keywords in the posts.

Which are the most successful recent posts?

Air Canada posted s successful video on February 9, 2017. The two-minute video shows the company celebrating its 80^th anniversary where it honors diversity and heritage. The video has 204 tweets and 341 likes.

Delta Airlines posted a successful video on February 8, 2017. The video demonstrates Delta’s support for Lucas Graham, a first-time GRAMMY Awards nominee. The video has 171 tweets and 735 likes. 

Why are these posts successful?

The post by Air Canada informs customers about the success the company has achieved for the past 80 years. Thus, it is marketing and promotion strategy the company uses to attract many customers. According to Grégoire et al. (2015), posts on social media such as Twitter provides customers with adequate information on the company’s operations, hence attracting many of them.

Delta Airlines uses the video to promote its brand. Increasing awareness of its brand makes it easy to attract customers from all parts of the world (Gunarathne et al., 2015). According to Wan and Gao (2015), Delta Airlines engages its consumers through Twitter to promote its brand.

Emirates vs Etihad on Twitter

Mandeep Singh

How often does each airline post?

Emirates is also very active on Twitter. They post content multiple times in one day.  On the Emirates main Twitter page, throughout a typical business/working week, there are around 6-7 postings. On weekends, they have quite a few posts made as well but, much less in comparison to the weekdays.

Etihad is also very active on Twitter.  posting, as they post contents daily but not in consecutive day. On Etihad’s main twitter page, in a typical weekday Etihad posts contents several times.  On weekends, they have days when they missed to make posts on their Twitter page.

What kind of content does each airline post?

Emirates posts a lot of new content on their Twitter page. The content is very much similar to their Facebook posts. Emirates very much shares and posts the similar information in their posts as they have done on their main Facebook page. The content they post ranges from events, flight services, latest technology, important news, sales, events, promotions, rules and regulations, and more. They convey the following content with the help of images and videos.

Etihad also posts a lot of new content on their Twitter page.  But, unlike Emirate the content they post is a bit different to the posts made on their main Facebook page. The content they post mentions things like: their flight services, duty free shopping, upcoming fashion events/shows, latest cargo planes, deals and types of food a person can enjoy on their flight. The following content is delivered with the help of images and videos.

Emirates –

Etihad –

Does each airline use the 50/50 rule?

Emirates promotes services that they provide on their Twitter page, directing their viewers to answer back or input their thought on their services, trips, and improvements. 

Etihad posts content based on meals and experiences or the feel a person gets while travelling in their aircraft(s). This guides it followers to input their dream experiences and thoughts on their services.

Keyword sentences used by either airlines.

Emirates uses several #hashtags in their Twitter posts including: #Emirates, #Dubai and #Fly Emirates.

Etihad also uses several #hashtags in their Twitter posts which includes: #Abu Dhabi and #Etihad Airways.

Which are the most successful recent posts? Why are the posts successful?

Emirates –

The most successful recent Emirates tweet was on January 30^th, 2017.  It has 366 retweets, 1.0K likes and 30 replies. The tweet was introducing and capturing Emirates enormous aircraft, also known as the super jumbo. It is simply beautiful. In this post, Emirates is informing their customers/clients that there is a new type of flight that is even bigger to the regular jumbo jet (A380 Double decker) which comes with a lot more/new features and specifications in it. This post was successful as it shocked and amazed its followers. It made them proud to be a part of such a growing Airline Company. With that being said it is hard to decide whether it is a Beauty or a beast?

Etihad –

The most successful recent Etihad tweet was on January 18^th, 2017.  It has 333 retweets, 314 likes and 12 replies. This tweet was promoting the meals and food being served on flight. The following tweet was successful because it made it very informative to its followers, about how serious Etihad takes its inflight meals. This tweet was also quite interactive to its audience on Twitter. It made its followers happy and got them craving. Food is definitely a huge aspect in deciding which Airline Company to fly.