• by Harvey Chipkin , Columnist, June 17, 2013

Rainn Wilson, who played the quirky Dwight Schrute on “The Office” TW show, recently tweeted a number of caustic, okay vicious, comments about US Airways service because a connecting flight had left prior to departure time – causing the cast of the show to miss a scheduled appearance in Scranton, Pa., where the TV show takes place. Some of the tweets were pretty graphic, and I’ll spare you those, but, clearly, somebody like Wilson has a tremendous number of followers and impact.

And Twitter has its own “celebrities” who might be called influencers. They might be superfans who have developed a strong following of their own because they are, say, frequent business travelers who log a million miles a year; or who stay with Hilton 200 nights a year.

So how does a company deal with these celebrities/influencers? Expion, a social media management company, recently released an analysis of the Twitter strategies of eight airline brands to see which ones were winning and which falling flat when it comes to Twitter. The report shows that celebrity-driven conversations (bad and good) generated the most interest and buzz across Twitter for the airline industry. Surprisingly, old-line United and Delta came out on top while “cool” Southwest, Jet Blue and Virgin America failed to create very many buzz-worthy tweets. 

US Airways suffered the biggest crisis because of Wilson, who garnered thousands of retweets and caused more negative buzz than any other airline-related tweet measured by Expion in May. 

Meanwhile, Delta and United generated the top brand-published tweets. Delta did it by focusing on promoting and commenting on celebrity partnership and pop culture events, while United developed brand-focused content that resonated extremely well with fans. 

Another highlight: Ed Sheeran, a British musician, proved to be a social media heavyweight because in just one month he earned Twitter plaudits for one airline and boos for another – with Delta being the beneficiary of sponsoring a Sheeran concert while he tweeted a picture of an award statue that had been smashed during an American Airlines flight.

Ouch.

Mike Heffring, CMO for Expion, said that brands have to first know who is following them – especially influencers who might include celebrities, high-profile bloggers or superfans. Then a strategy must be developed around: crisis management and engaging in an authentic way.

At best, says Heffring, social media should be incorporated into customer service. Just as a hotel company has a call center, it must have a social media center to respond to real-time tweets. 

Twitter is ideal, says Heffring, for music and pop culture-oriented communications. Delta, for instance, heavily promoted a concert it was sponsoring – but also capitalized on all the buzz about new episodes of "Arrested Development" by Tweeting about the much-anticipated Netflix TV show. 

If it’s done right, a strategy will come in handy when it comes to crisis management. For instance, if a Rainn Wilson goes ballistic, then superfans might jump in to say, “Come on, Rainn, we always have good experiences with the airline…”

As always, the celebrities and influencers should fit the brand profile to make it all work. Bottom line: while this has long been the Age of Celebrity, it has now become the Age of Celebrities/Influencers. It’s critical for any brand to know who they are and understand the best ways to deal with them. 

Your very reputation could be at stake.