Your Social-Media Vacation Message System

WHAT IT IS: With this tool from German airline Lufthansa, your network will know you're out of town when Facebook tells them you're in a plane somewhere over Helsinki. My Sky Status is a Facebook and Twitter widget that tells your friends and followers where exactly you are while you're traveling. What's more, you can track flights on any airline, not just Lufthansa, which created the tool with independent digital agency Profero's New York office. At MySkyStatus.com, a Lufthansa-branded property, travelers can enter their carrier, departure date and flight number or departing and arriving airports and select which social network they'd like to post their status to. Then, on their profile page, the widget will update their location in real time for all their friends to see. HOW IT WORKS: Lufthansa's air-tracking system has access to every airline's flight details and location. Sky Status taps into that and feeds data to individual pages, like Flight Status trackers on airline websites. So how does Lufthansa win brand points, even when a flier is on a competitor's airline? All their social-media friends see that their status messages are "powered by Lufthansa." WHAT'S BEHIND IT: Profero wanted to leverage technology to translate the airline's brand message into utility for its customers and potential customers. "For a long time the airline industry has told consumers where they're going, but now we're going to show what Lufthansa is good at and provide some value," said Wayne Arnold, Profero CEO North America. WHO'S USING IT? In 16 days, the site has attracted more than 60,000 unique visitors, which have resulted in about 500,000 newsfeed impressions on Twitter and 1 million on Facebook. The service has been promoted on Lufthansa.com and with a banner campaign.

Your Social-Media Vacation Message System

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