Fishburn Hedges

11.03.2011 | (2 comments)

A few weeks ago, EasyJet quietly revealed a blog. First spotted by my eagle-eyed FH Beta colleague Paul, we had been keeping track of it for nearly a month before it was officially launched on the 25^th of February after, prudently, the blog had been able to settle into itself a bit.   

I can think of several reasons a blog could be a sensible idea for EasyJet. Most importantly, it’s a company with something to blog about – travel. This is not only an intensely bloggable subject but an area in which EasyJet has previously stockpiled expertise, only to stash it in an uninspiring corner of their website. Like a sort of online display case, a blog’s the perfect medium to show this expertise off.

Also, a quick survey tells you EasyJet is the first of its competitors to launch a blog, and has a first-mover advantage courting the online travel community. The only blog BA currently runs is its rather dry Travel Industry News (typical post: ‘Mauritius flights change timetable and move to Gatwick’), and whilst Ryan Air’s interactions with the blogosphere have so far been tragicomic, BMI appear to be doing nothing at all.

First impressions

At the moment – while EasyJet gets its sea legs (to confuse travel idioms) - its blog content is a bit erratic. A skipping-rope contest to win an Amsterdam city break sits alongside an inspirational film about an employee nicked straight from the HR department. This sits above news that EasyJet is spraying its planes with a new type of coating, which follows a straight-forward plug about the company’s January sales. Eclectic, definitely, but maybe not in a particularly good way.

What should it do? Well firstly EasyJet needs to decide on an audience. If the blog’s intended for fans only, then posts about expansion plans in Scotland and their employees’ ‘Orange Spirit’ are fine, but I don’t see why an EasyJet blog should be niche when it has the potential to engage with a much broader audience. Surely a blog should set out to lure fans with quality content, rather than just keep ones you already have sweet.

Blogging for a broad EasyJet audience

This is more of a challenge; non-fans are obviously more likely to be more sensitive to posts with an overly-strong whiff of ‘sales’ and are more likely to sound off in the comment box. Extra resources would need to be reserved to assuage and redirect grumbles to customer care services.

More generally, EasyJet needs to work hard to produce content that is interesting and useful for fans and potential fans alike. One of the EasyJet posts so far fits the bill quite well– videos of its ‘blogger challenge’. Four travel bloggers flew (with EasyJet, naturally) to an undisclosed location within Europe to visit as much of the city as possible within 15 hours on a limited budget. A great idea which was executed in a charming if slightly haphazard sort of way.

With so much expertise at its disposal, it should be easy for EasyJet to blog usefully about travel. I’d love it if it highlighted undiscovered gems  in the European rough and wrote city guides for specific audiences (like Berlin for clubbers/Zagreb for parents). 

I’d also love it if they took us behind the scenes a bit more, find an upbeat, slightly irreverent cabin crew who could blog about having a hoot at work. This is might not be easy but it is possible. I have been on EasyJet flights before and had a whale of a time; the cabin crew clearly enjoyed each other’s company and had great interaction with passengers. An internal communications programme could even be run concurrently to find this cabin crew, with a few nice incentives thrown in.  Behind-the-scenes videos are relatively inexpensive, and folks love it – look at Airport (and Stansted: The Inside Story. Yes, really – it’s on Channel 5).

If EasyJet run blog that’s informative, fun and trustworthy those good associations should rub off on the brand. Whilst we most definitely applaud these baby steps into the blogosphere, EasyJet should guard against coming across as slightly introspective.  A refocus and a bit more of that ‘Orange Spirit’ though, and the EasyJet blog could be ready for takeoff.  

on 15.03.2011

Madeleine Scarlett-Smith :-
"Absolutely, the crucial point is that by establishing a consumer-facing blog EasyJet is moving beyond corporate PR and creating opportunities for customers and potential customers to interact with the company in a user-friendly way. It's a significant step in the right direction".

on 11.03.2011

Aviane :-
My first impression of the Easy Jet blog was that it seemed to be a hub to copy and paste media release type information. It just did not seem engaging and travel has to be one of the most exciting and dynamic topics to blog about. I agree - they need to go back and think about the voice they want for their blog, and who exactly they want to be talking and exactly what they want the blog to do for them. But knowing how hard it is to get mgmt to say yes to a blog in the first place, I cannot be too critical of them at this point.