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GOVERNMENT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

FACULTY OF WORLD ECONOMY AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

MASTER OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS PROGRAM

MASTER THESIS

THE WAYS OF CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT IN GLOBAL AIRLINE INDUSTRY THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA BY THE EXAMPLE OF TURKISH AIRLINES

Student: Eren OZTAN

Research Advisor: Maria PINSON

Moscow 2019

Table of contents

social media customer airline

Introduction

1. Theoretical Aspects of Customer Engagement in the Global Airline Industry Through Social Media

1.1 Customer Engagement by International Companies

1.2 Customer Engagement by International Airline Companies

1.3 Customer Engagement by International Airline Companies on Social Media

2. Increasing Customer Engagement in Global Airline Companies

2.1 Analysis of Global Airline Industry

2.2 Comparison of Turkish Airlines and Other Global Airline Companies on Social media

2.3 Analysis of Posting Actions and the Content Theme of Turkish Airlines on Social Media

3. Findings and Recommendations

3.1 Findings

3.2 Recommendations for the Global Airline Companies

3.3 Recommendations for the Future Research

Conclusion

References

Introduction

In the twenty first century, the significance of the global airline industry and the contribution it provides to the world economy is significant. As a result of having a multitude of benefits apart from those of a monetary nature, having a strong airline industry occupies an indispensable place in the agenda of a broad range of entities, such as policy makers of governments, companies' shareholders, media actors, and so forth.

Nowadays, developments in new communication technologies affect many areas in business life. The marketing strategies of airline companies are also affected by these developments. Since, the number of active users on social media platforms is steadily growing, customers have started to profoundly impact other customers buying processes by sharing their experiences and influencing them about the services of the airlines in question. This case changing the way of customer engagement of companies in the global airline industry.

Companies operating in the global airline are presenting the best practices of customer engagement on social media and leading companies from other industries along. Since they have huge budgets, airline companies enjoy the opportunity to allocate significant amounts from their marketing funds for social media marketing purposes. Their share of social media funds in general marketing budget is increasing day by day and the absolute value is bigger than many others.

Turkish Airlines the national flag carrier of the Republic of Turkey is an interesting airline to examine. With a fleet of 329 aircrafts Turkish Airlines flies passengers to more than 121 countries around the world and is known to be the airline that connects with the highest number of countries in the world (Turkish Airline Fact Sheet, 31.12.2017). Turkish Airlines is one of the prominent companies in this category with its fast growth on social media. Turkish Airlines shows great interest in social media and performs better than many of its competitors who have larger number of passengers, revenue or brand value.

Even though the concept of customer engagement has a substantial and essential place in business, there does not exist an abundance of research and thorough investigation on the topic, and the social media context above all. We have been witnessing in the academy, that there have been some views that are not so compatible or complementary to each other in terms of the definition of the concept of customer engagement. Researchers also have yet to come closer to a common ground in measuring online consumer engagement. Therefore, it can be inferred, that this paper not only endeavors to contribute to the academic literature, but also to the professional field in marketing as well. On social media, a majority of the sectors and industries require painstaking and comprehensive cognizance and insights into the ways and means for entities in the industry to utilize on the purposes of having people engage on social media on their favor.

To sum up, the main goal of this research is to identify the determinants and ways of consumer engagement on social media platforms in the global airline industry. The object of the study is customer engagement in global airline industry, whereas the subject is consumer engagement in global airline industry on social media.

This research will monitor the official social media pages of Turkish Airlines and analyze the posting day, posting type and content theme with quantitative methods and case study. From the basis we put forward the following hypotheses:

H1: On the YouTube channel of Turkish Airlines, contents about the home city generates more customer engagement than contents about other cities.

H2: On the Instagram page of Turkish Airlines, posts on weekdays accumulate more customer engagement than weekends.

H3: On the Facebook page of Turkish Airlines, posts with images accumulate higher level of customer engagement than posts in video format.

In order to achieve the main aim of the paper, a number of tasks are identified:

- To review theories on the topic: the definition and the concept of the term “Customer Engagement” and its peculiarities for the international companies; (Chapter 1)

- To review existing literature on customer engagement in the global airline industry and its reflections on social media; (Chapter 1)

- To analyze the performance of top airline companies on social media platforms through online desk research to identify their consumer engagement rate by the number of followers; (Chapter 2)

- To conduct cross-case analysis by monitoring the customer interaction numbers and the way of customer engagement of the largest airlines on social media; (Chapter 2)

- To analyze the posting actions of Turkish Airlines on social media and its results on interaction levels; (Chapter 2)

- To make recommendations for the airline companies in terms of customer engagement on their official social media pages. (Chapter 3)

1. Theoretical Aspects of Customer Engagement in the Global Airline Industry Through Social Media

1.1 Customer Engagement by International Companies

Consumer engagement has been receiving attention both from scholars and practitioners due to its significant role in increasing outcomes for international companies and customers. As with many others, the term and its scope are adjusting to our time according to the technologic developments and changes in international business environment. Before outlining definitions of “customer engagement”, it will be useful to look into “customer” and “engagement” individually.

In very basic definition, “customer” is an individual or business that purchases the goods or services offered by a business. On the other hand, the “consumer” is the one who is the end user of the good or service (McLaughlin, 2009). Although in daily life and literature it is often in use as a synonym, customer and consumer does not always refer to the same agent. Briefly, consumer is not always the one who makes the decision to buy, therefore, we will use the term “customer” in that thesis.

Engagement is a term which is widely used in many scientific disciplines and studies such as economy, marketing and organizational behaviors. To make a definition of engagement, some academics are highlighting psychological process and others are emphasizing behavioral focus according to their field of study. Regarding the first group, engagement is explained as a psychological state which may end up in loyalty and for the second group it is as an organizational commitment behavior. (Lay and Bowden, 2009)

Considering the both groups of academics, multidimensional approach is evolved to make a comprehensive definition for the term customer engagement. To illustrate, it is defined as “the level of an individual customer's motivational, brand-related and context-dependent state of mind characterised by specific levels of cognitive, emotional and behavioural activity in direct brand interactions” (Hollebeek, 2011:24). In that explanation consumer engagement is conceptualized in three main dimensions as cognitive, emotional and behavioral which we will look into deeper later. Customer engagement can also be explained as “customer's behavioral manifestations that have a brand or firm focus, beyond purchase, resulting from motivational drivers” (Van Doorn et al., 2010:254).

On the other hand, definitions above are not enough to shed light on the customer and firm interactions after the transformation caused by the online networks. It goes without saying that emergence and rise of the internet enabled geographically dispersed individuals to gather online with the shared interests and build new customer and firm relations. (Brodie, Illic, Juric, Hollebeek, 2013) Moreover, connection becomes stronger not only between companies and customers (B2C) or companies with other companies (B2B), but also customers come together online and created (C2C) groups for information flow.

Grouped individuals in online platforms and their engagement practices are subjected to online brand communities. In this context, according to Brodie et al. (2013) “consumer engagement in a virtual brand community involves specific interactive experiences between consumers and the brand, and/or other members of the community. Consumer engagement is a context-dependent, psychological state characterized by fluctuating intensity levels that occur within dynamic, iterative engagement processes” (Brodie et al., 2013:106).

In 2010, Marketing Science Institute's (MSI) 2010 - 2012 Research Priorities drastically impacted the conceptualization of customer engagement in literature. MSI takes attention on customer engagement and highlights the need for further research in this key area. After MSI's emphasis on customer engagement, researchers abandoned using other similar terms such as consumer involvement or participation since they are not adequate to refer to the new interactive relations of customers provided by online networks. (Brodie et al., 2013:105)

In this context MSI's 2010 - 2012 Research Priorities can be regarded as a turning point and researches can be divided into two groups as the ones before 2010 and after 2010. In general, studies before 2010 mostly adopted one-dimensional approach and used the term customer participation or involvement to refer to explain customer behavior in online environment. (Poorrezaei, 2016:36)

Bagozzi and Dholakia (2002) is a prominent illustration for the first group of studies. They measured the visit of frequency and duration to explain the customer participation. Fortunately, those variables can easily be tracked by the web applications such as Google Analytics. According to this concept, when the customer visits the website more often and spends more time, consumer involvement is successful. Limitation of this study is they do not investigate the shape or level of the engagement. To illustrate, they neglect whether a user open a page and leave the computer or spend time for getting or sending negative information about the company.

Another prominent example of this group is Schlosser (2005) whose study is found useful and popularly implemented by practitioners. According to this study, customers are categorized into two groups as `lurkers' and `posters' in terms of their contribution of content. Customers who only read and get information from others are classified as lurkers. Others who actively create content and share online are named as posters. According to what is conceptualized as the “90-9-1 rule” for the use of social media, “lurkers” who only view (and do not interact with) the contents posted represent 90% of the social media usage, while only 9% of users actively interact by inserting comments, and a mere 1% are those who create new and original content (Arthur, 2006). The dichotomy between lurkers and posters has been widely adopted by scholars and practitioners due to its easy applicability across wide online environments. With this method, although customer involvement is easily measured by log on file data, large segmentation does not provide a clear understanding about the involvement. (Poorrezaei, 2016:38)

On the other hand, Kozinets (1999) has another customer typology which explains involvement by classification of community members in four groups. According to this study, first group is called “tourists” who are not interested in the topic of the community. They involve just to acquire information and learn about the community. They have not bought the brand yet and do not create strong relations with the other members. Second group is called “minglers” who are interested in the topic partially. They usually have bought the brand recently and obtain few knowledges about it. They aim to exchange information and create relations with the other members. Third group is called “devotees” who demonstrate high interest and eagerness towards the topic of the community. They are loyal customers and they have high level of knowledge about the topic. However, they don't create strong relations with the other members. The last group is called “insiders” who also demonstrate high interest and eagerness towards the topic of the community. Furthermore, they are the leaders of the community and loyal customers. They share their professional knowledge and create strong relations with the other members. (Kozinets, 1999)

Hennig-Thurau (2004) have studied on customer engagement and focused on factors which drive customer participation on social media. According to his study, those factors can be summarized as the followings: “1) expression of negative feelings, 2) anxiety about other customers, 3) self- enhancement, 4) search for an advice, 5) social benefits, 6) economic benefits (e.g. cost savings), 7) platform assistance, and 8) company support.” (Hennig and Thurau, 2004)

Second stream of researches after 2010 are better to predict and explain the power of customer engagement. Main difference from the earlier researches is the perception of engagement is given as a multi-dimensional concept. By doing so, they provided the conceptual richness of the construct and bridge the customers' and firms' perspective in terms of the broader context of “co-creating value” and the active role of customers' in this process. (Poorrezaei, 2016:40)

Brodie and Hollebek are the prominent authors who made the most comprehensive and cited definition of customer engagement which we quoted above. Hollebeek (2011) conceptualized consumer engagement in three main dimensions as cognitive, affective and behavioral. Affective dimension is the summative and enduring level of enthusiasm and enjoyment feelings of customer. Behavioral dimension is behavioral manifestations of sharing, learning and endorsing actions of the customer and motivational drivers beyond the purchase. Cognitive dimension is the set of enduring and active mental state of experience with attention.

There is another recent research perspective which is called social perspective cannot be categorized in neither one-dimensional nor multi-dimensional categorization. Within this context, “engagement” is defined as “a very complex concept strongly influenced by psychological, social, interactive, relational, experiential and context-based components” (Gambetti and Graffigna, 2010:816) and it should be taken into consideration in specific contexts as it is mutable owing to its postmodern character. Customer engagement should be thus approached with qualitative studies as they would better capture its multi-faceted reality on a social level. Since it involves interaction among individuals, it is difficult to make prediction by nature. (Gambetti and Graffigna, 2010)

Table 1

Consumer Engagement Research Categorization

Source: Javornik-Mandelli, 2013:6

One of the prominent effect of social media in business life is that companies figured out that their benefits from customers are not limited with selling their products. Pansari and Kumar (2017) define customer engagement as “the mechanics of a customer's value addition to the firm, through direct and / or indirect contribution” (Pansari and Kumar 2017:7). The company benefits directly from the customers' purchases, and these purchases have a straightforward impact on performance. Though, there are also indirect benefits which will support the increase of performance in long term such as receiving positive online comments, likes or user shared brand contents. The indirect contribution components of customer engagement comprise “customer referral value”, “customer influence value” and “customer knowledge value” (Gupta, Pansari, Kumar, 2018:5).

“Customer referral value” is defined as the customer's indirect contribution to the company's performance by referring the company's products and services to other customers who, as a result, also purchase the products and services of said company. “Customer influence value” is the indirect impact of the customers' social media interactions on the company's performance, by posting positive comments and content about the company's products and services and thereby favorably influencing other individuals (i.e. friends, relatives, colleagues and other contacts) within their social media circles. “Customer knowledge value”, on the other hand, is explained as the indirect contribution of the customer through feedback, suggestions and comments conveyed to the company to improve its products, enhance its services, and to better streamline its processes. (Gupta, Pansari, Kumar, 2018:5)

According to Pansari and Kumar (2017) beginning from the first entry of the goods and services to the market, every activity of the company aims to create awareness for the customer. This awareness plays an important role for the customer to identify if (s)he is looking for such a product or the service. If the customer places a demand for the product or service offered by company, this initial purchase constitutes a “customer experience”. This experience is considered by “positive” if the customer's expectations are satisfied. The customer's satisfaction towards the company's products and/or services increases the likelihood of repeated purchases. The positive experience transforms into positive emotions (Pansari and Kumar, 2017:5), creating an emotional attachment with the firm. This attachment will result with the satisfied customer's increased engagement with firm, taking various forms including direct contributions (i.e. purchases) and indirect contributions (referrals, influence, feedback, etc.) However, there are several other factors that moderate the connection between satisfaction, customer engagement and emotions, such as the nature and type of industry (service vs. manufacturing), the level of customer involvement in the buying decision process, brand value, convenience, and type of firm (B2B vs B2C). Bearing in mind that many firms operate in more than one country, cultural and economic factors also become important in understanding customer behavior and finetuning the firms' communications with customers. (Gupta, Pansari, Kumar, 2018)

In global context, customers' buying behavior or more specifically customer engagement is affected by the countries' different cultural and economic factors. Economic factors determine the ability of customers to buy the brand such as gross domestic disposable income or consumer price index. Those factors are objective, quantitative and comparable. However, customers' attitudes or moods which determines the willingness to buy the brand is a subjective factor and incomparable. (Gupta, Pansari, Kumar, 2018)

Although customer engagement is a global issue, only in United States the outcomes of the concept are measured. The measures demonstrate that outcomes of customer engagement are different in each industry. For example, in the United States consumer electronics sector, “disengaged customers” spend on average $289 per shopping trip while this figure increases to $373 for “engaged customers”. In the food catering and restaurant sector, “fully engaged customers” make 56% more visits per month compared to disengaged customers. The situation is similar in the insurance sector as well - “engaged policy owners” purchase 22% more types of insurance products compared to “disengaged policy owners”. In the retail banking industry, the annual revenue brought in by “engaged customers” is 37% more than the revenue brought in by “disengaged customers” (Sorenson and Adkins 2014).

International companies have to take into consideration the cultural and economic differences between countries to succeed in customer engagement. They become successful if they can localize their products and services in accordance with these cultural and economic differences. Apple Stores, for example, are known for implementing a customer service protocol in tune with the culture of the region in which the stores operate. The Paris Apple Stores in Berlin or Paris, for example, are located in old opera buildings and they look different from the exterior than Apple stores in Istanbul or New York which are located in shopping malls (Stone M., 2014). Bob Bridger, Vice President of Apple Retail Development, explains that “once a location is picked, it's all a matter of working towards making sure the store has an inviting appeal that matches its surrounding culture and environment. It's about `getting out into the street' and feeling what the local feels” (Hovivian, 2016). Fastfood brands such as McDonalds and Burger King also adapt their menus accordingly - pork bacon, for example, is a standard ingredient in hamburgers offered by these brands in the United States and Europe but never offered (not even as a “choice”) in Muslim countries such as Turkey (McDonald's UK 2012 cited in Gupta, Pansari, Kumar, 2018).

On the other hand, we find two other studies tested customer engagement of international companies on social media. Kravchenko (2017) made her research on global coffeehouse industry and analyzed Starbucks official page on Facebook. According to her results customer engagement is higher in weekends than in the weekdays. Moreover, contents including information such as new seasonal offerings or programs for loyal customers generates more customer engagement than contents about entertaining. She also verified that contents in image format are accumulating more customer engagement than video format. Image format is more attractive for customers to make likes and videos format is stronger to receive more comments.

The other study in this concept belongs to Kuznetsova (2018), in which she analyzed customer engagement in global beauty industry and by the example of Too Faced, NYX and MAC pages on Facebook and Instagram. According to her results customer engagement is higher in the weekdays than in the weekends. Also, she concluded that videos and images are accumulating better customer engagement than links. She also tested effects of posts including faces, mentioning influencers and interactivity level on customer engagement.

1.2 Customer Engagement by International Airline Companies

Airline industry is inevitably oligopolistic due to its capital-intensive nature and high entry costs. There are only few numbers of airline companies operating in each country and only some of them have international flights. Airline companies especially with international flights are directly or indirectly supported by their governments, therefore, it is not wrong to say that high competition among airlines is not only between companies but also between counties. (Bilotkacha and Hьschelrath, 2019)

It is essential for international airline companies to go beyond domestic market and to establish and maintain customer engagement and loyalty for a growing global market share and revenue (Akamavi 2015). Before two decades, people were only be able to book tickets from traditional travel agencies with high commissions. After the developments in information technologies, customers are able to reach the prices of other companies for their destination instantly. They can easily compare the costs and benefits of alternative transit flights and competitive international companies. Under these circumstances, to sustain competitive advantage and differentiate service quality, it is necessary to build strong relationship with local and global customers and implement successful customer engagement strategies in global scale. (Lee et al., 2018)

There have been some studies aiming to correctly explain the customer decision taking and choice of the airline company they wish to travel with. According to Suzuki (2007) this decision-making process has two steps. In the first step consumers identify a subset of airlines that have acceptable standards on the largest number of attributes, and in the second step they take a final decision from among the initial subset of airlines identified in the first step. Suzuki (2007) also suggests that the price of the airfare, frequency of flight services to the intended destination of the customer as well as campaigns and statuses such as “frequent flyer memberships” play a significant role in the customer's final decision.

In literature, customer engagement of international airline companies is usually studied together with customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. Researchers study customer engagement of airline companies with others on the grounds that isolating results of one from other is almost impossible. Customer satisfaction, perceived value, service quality and brand image are other concepts interrelated with customer engagement of international airline companies. (Hapsari, Clemes and Dean 2017)

In the airline industry as with the all others, customer engagement is critically important for increasing profit by acquiring new passengers and creating loyal customer pool to sustain it. Customer engagement strategy which focuses on global scale will contribute building loyal passengers with brand awareness. Companies try to pull as many customers as possible to enlarge their customer pool. In addition, they target to reach passengers who travel more often and spend more for their flights.

In this context, global airline companies establish loyalty programs that include incentives of a monetary nature as well as social and interactive benefits through the customer-airline relationship. Both practitioners and scholars agree on that main objective of loyalty program is engaging customers in long term relationships. Those programs are regarded as effective for attracting passengers from their first-time experience to repeating purchases, though, there is not well-developed measures for the results. When evaluating the effectiveness of loyalty programs, scholars generally use behavioral signals such as card usage or point redemption. (Bruneau, Swaen, Zidda; 2018:144-145)

Airlines can increase their competitiveness if they can create and retain loyal passengers, therefore encouraging and incentivizing passengers to choose the airline over and over again. Loyal customers are found to be less price sensitive and willing to pay an additional premium. In addition to this, it takes much less effort (and therefore money) to communicate with these loyal customers (Gomez, Arranz, Cillan; 2006). Airlines have more than economic incentives to encourage passengers to join loyalty programs. The loyalty programs nowadays have extended to include social issues, such as considering the customer's preferences (e.g., choice of meals), special treatment such as lounge services, personalized communications and offerings, personal invitations to special events, special prices and discounts and customized newsletters. Moving beyond economic incentives and offering additional benefits through customization helps establish much stronger and longlasting relationships with customers. (Bruneau, Swaen, Zidda; 2018)

Loyalty programs are also useful for companies to categorize their passengers and differentiate their services. According to the accumulated points, passengers receive different cards such as classic, silver, gold or platinum. By grouping their passengers, airlines provide more discounts or incentives for the passengers who spends more. For example, a classic card holder can use free business check in only in domestic travels, while a gold card holder can use free business check in both in domestic and international travels.

In the airline industry, Hapsari et al. (2017) claims that psychological factors are critical in increasing customer loyalty. Engaged customers, for example, may feel a sense of pride and ownership towards their choice of airline, and may feel complimented when other individuals make favorable comments about “their airline”. This connection between the customer and the airline increases the likelihood of a continuous relationship with the company, and engaged customers are prone to recommend “their brand” to others compared to non-engaged customers. (Hapsari et al., 2017:32-33)

Loyalty programs are indispensable not only for customer engagement but also customer satisfaction. According to the studies about airline industry, customer loyalty can be only sustained when the customer satisfaction is ensured. (Park 2019) Therefore, airline is the industry that customer evaluations are implemented most often. In general, customer satisfaction of specific services is “an evaluation of customers between the performance of provided services and the expected performance evaluation of the services” (Nimako, 2012 cited in Park 2019:371). In this framework, when the demand of passenger is meet above his or her expectation, (s)he will tent to engage to service and reuse it. Consequently, customer satisfaction is a major factor of passengers' intention to reuse the service argument is accepted by both user-related and service-oriented studies. (Park 2019) Thus, airlines should capitalize on the positive affect that customer satisfaction is a factor ending up with customer engagement. Satisfied flying experiences may result in an increase in engaged customers. (Hapsari et al., 2017:25)

As shortly mentioned in the definition of customer satisfaction above, Khraim (2014) asserted that customer satisfaction is highly correlated with the expectations about the service. When the customers' expectations are met, then they are satisfied. When the expectations are surpassed, then they are delighted. But if expectations are not met, customers are dissatisfied. (Khraim 2014:188) Dissatisfied customers lead to negative WOM which will harm the airlines reputation and image. Dissatisfied customers can convey their negative experience by through different channels. In the prosperous Internet era, the fast expansion of WOM can seriously damage a company's profitability. (Lee et al., 2018). Airline companies that have strong brand community will have positive WOM and will have the ability to handle negative WOM more successfully. Thus, creating brand community is very important for airline companies. Brand community is a driver of customer engagement and the way to communication and interaction with the customers. Engaged customers are willing to tell their experience with other like-minded people. As a result, airline companies support and organize all platforms that will provide their customers to meet with each other and share their positive views about the company. Those kind of platforms and interactions are useful to keep customers engaged with the company. (Hapsari et al., 2017)

Customer satisfaction goes to customer engagement is inevitably related with the service quality. Service quality, customer satisfaction and customer engagement are steps in a row linked strongly to each other. When the passengers perceive having high level of service quality, they have high level of satisfaction. High level of customer satisfaction enable company to set higher prices. In addition, satisfied passengers are open to repurchase. Airlines try to keep communication with such passengers and include them to loyal customers pool. It is a very important and strategic decision for airlines to guarantee high quality interaction experience via professional and trained staff, physical environments such as inflight facilities as well as safety and security aspects in order to keep customers satisfied. (Hapsari et al., 2017:34)

Airline companies push hard to create strong brand images to increase customer confidence and engagement. Brand image provides customers an opportunity to recognize the company, evaluate its quality, understand and reconcile purchase risks, and obtain certain experience and satisfaction (Diresehan - Kurtulus; 2018:86). Company image distinguishes each airline from the others. The perception of service is inevitable influenced by the corporate reflections. (Lee et al., 2018) In practice, increased flight comfort, free appetizers, attempts to enhance quality and paying heed to departure's punctuality are significant in creating a positive brand image. (Diresehan - Kurtulus; 2018:90)

Brand image and brand prestige are two important factors for airline companies to enhance customer engagement and customer loyalty. They also contribute to create excitement and passion in customers. Excited customers influence others to use the brand and create social recognition for the company. (Hapsari et al., 2017) Brand prestige makes customers to rely on the brand and believe to receive a standard service, moreover, it makes customers to get familiar with the brand have a good picture of it in their mind which ease of purchase in the end (Shafiee, Sanayei, Shahin, Dolatabadi; 2014:363).

Customer engagement is a long process which commences with the first contact with the potential passenger and continues after the purchase as well. Therefore, customer engagement and aforementioned interrelated terms are identified in every touchpoint separately with the customers. These touchpoints go beyond “one-time transactional experiences” or “simple linear journey”, instead they cover all transactions including before and following consumption period (Laming-Mason, 2014:15-16). At this point, Laming-Mason (2014) who investigates customer experience in airline industry define the term customer experience as “the physical and emotional experiences occurring through the interactions with the product and/or service offering of a brand from point of first direct, conscious contact, through the total journey to the post-consumption stage”. Furthermore, the interaction between customers and all stimuli linked to retailers “such as store atmosphere, employees, location, service quality, advertising, servicescape and loyalty program encourage a certain form of experience” (Laming and Mason, 2014:15).

At this point, in order to understand and track customer experiences academics and practitioners use customer journey mapping. Customer journey mapping describes what happens to customers and which reaction they give to their experiences while they are taking the service. Customer journey mapping strategy provides airlines to clarify the expectations of customers in each touch point and how airlines can improve their services to fulfil those expectations. (Benneker, 2018) In other words, along the touchpoints where interactions and communication between customer and airline take places, the expectation and satisfaction of the customer should be handled by the airline according to the context of the conversation.

According to Benneker, there are four stages in customer journey mapping (below) in the airline industry which include the physical, digital and social communication areas:

In the first stage, which is called attract, customer get acquainted with the company for the first time through social media or promotion offers posted online. Therefore, this stage takes place in both digital and social arena.

In the second stage, which is called decide, customer decides to buy a plane ticket through internet or call center or physical store. Correspondingly, the customer gets closer to the company by buying a flight ticket which leads to an increase of flows to the social media accounts of the company.

In the third stage, which is called use, customers experience the flight bought from the company. The airline sends e-ticket, boarding pass, flight information and travel guides to the passenger via email or social media.

In the fourth stage, which is called support, the company develops communication with the customer during pre-flight, in-flight and after-flight. In case of an unwanted situation, company shows its support to the customer.

In the fifth stage, which is called retain, company tries to maintain customers, especially frequent and business flyers. Company presents individual promotions, discounts or loyalty programs for returning customers as this makes them feel valued which increases the possibility of customers repurchasing with the company.

1.3 Customer Engagement by International Airline Companies on Social Media

Through the civilization history, improving communication has been one of the most leading topic and new ways of communication made profound changes in society. In the 21^st century, social media is the contemporary method of us to express our thoughts, view and manner in an entirely modern way. Recently, social media channels have integrated into our lives and correspondingly the new forms of global relationships developed. It goes without saying that novelty of social media has also given a new shape to business relations and transformed interactions between companies and customers. (Saravanakumar and SuganthaLakshmi; 2012:4444-4445)

Social media can be defined as “a group of Internet based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and allow the creation and exchange of user generated content” (Kaplan - Haenlein; 2010:61). To put it differently, the Web 2.0 has not brought an important development in technology but transformed the concept in practice. For instance, customers are no longer passive clients, but active participants who share information, personal experiences and opinions with pairs on the social media platforms (Berthon et al. 2007). Further, Web 2.0 facilitates web design, responsive user interfaces and establishment of social networks of people with its technological platform. (Murugesan, 2007)

It is possible to pinpoint three separate groups of social media when defining the direction of the communication: The first of these groups is “bi-directional social media” which allows for mutual communication between airlines, customers and the public. The second group includes “airline-to-public social media” (A2P) which defines a one-way communication from the airline to the public. The third group which resembles to A2P, is the “public-to-public social media” P2P. In this third group the social media communication of the airline is managed by a different user rather than the airline. In this type of communication the airline is not able to respond to, or interact directly with, the content created by the user. (Grancay, 2014:214)

When the communication strategy through social media is planned efficiently, companies can make promotions with low economic costs. Contrarily, ignoring social media may cause negative image and long-term problems. Users and service-providing companies can build strong connections through social media platforms. It is important to note that hundreds of thousands of internet-savvy users benefit from social media platforms to exchange experiences with each other, give positive and/or negative ratings to companies and even blame them for not providing the services promised. Many social media users expect companies to respond to their problems in a matter of minutes. (Bain & Company, 2011) One common mistake that companies make is to open bi-directional social media pages where users, and particularly unhappy customers, are not allowed to openly share their experiences with other customers. This is regarded by the customers as an arrogant attitude and result in damaging the image (Grancay, 2014:214). If the airline company is not ready to give quick replies to its customers, starting with A2P page will be a better policy. Social media is not providing a new way of communication but also a new way of distribution channel for airline companies. After the internet and the social media, airline companies are able to sell tickets directly online rather than via travel agents or airlines sale points. (Grancay, 2014)

Among all online communication ways, the focus of airline companies is on the user generated content on the grounds that its effects on customers and influence on engagement. User generated content can be in written texts, sounds, image or video form. According to Hvass - Munar (2012) user generated content promotional marketing mix in airline industry includes advertising, selling, sales promotion, public relations, sponsorships, direct mail, WOM and social activity. Basically, in advertising, service of the airline is described and explained. Selling is when the airline leaves a link for customers to buy the service and selling promotion is the link with loyalty program. Public relations include general response to a question other than advertising and providing information or challenges / games for customers. Sponsorships are events or initiatives of the airline for attracting customers. Airlines send direct mails for real time or pertinent information for customers. WOM is promoting content uploaded by other users. Social activity includes a dialog without specific information about the company such as wishing happy holidays. (Hvass - Munar, 2012)

Regarding user generated content, unlike the earlier marketer-customer technology platforms, social media allow customers to directly engage with the brand. In other words, supported by the electronic channel of communication, social media enriches marketing globally and allow companies to touch customers at the personal the level. (Mangold and Faulds 2009). Customers are the dominant transparent contributors and interact with each other and organizations. According to Goh, Heng, and Lin's study, engaged customers' messages were 22 times more effective than those of marketers underlines the importance of understanding customer engagement in social media (Goh, Heng, Lin; 2013).

Considering the above-mentioned importance of the user generated content and its influence on customer engagement, strategy development about posting activities become critical. Post media type and posting time are the basic two elements that associate with the customer engagement plan of the companies. (Cvijkj & Michahelles, 2013)

Moderators of the companies on social media page ssuch as Facebook undertakes sharing action and the post media type. Facebook provides moderators more freedom in terms of the post type of the content. Moderator can post photo, video, text or link on their timeline. On the other hand, YouTube limits them to share only videos. Instagram started with photos but later supported short videos as well. Images and videos have different level of media richness that is commonly introduced as the vividness of the online content. In other words, videos have greater vividness than photos because they include sounds and longer and higher visuality. (Cvijkj & Michahelles, 2013)

In this concept, Cvijkj & Michahelles (2013) analyzed the factors that influence the level of online customer engagement on social media. They focused on “which content should be posted to trigger higher level of online engagement and when the content should be posted” (Cvijkj & Michahelles, 2013:847). Their research indicated the “effect of the content characteristics, such as media type, content type, day and time of posting, over the level of online engagement” on a social media page. They “measured the engagement level through the number of likes over the content created by the company, number of comments, number of shares and interaction duration” (Cvijkj & Michahelles, 2013:847). Their study concluded that vividness increases the level of engagement over moderator posts and photos are the most appealing post media type. In addition, they found that posts created on weekdays increase the level of comments.

Similarly, Fortin and Dholakia (2005) measured “the effects of various levels of interactivity and vividness of a message on attitudes and behavioral intentions within a web-based advertisement”. Their study concluded that “providing enhanced vividness of the message by means of colors, graphics, and animation is more likely to generate a favorable impact than comparable levels of interactivity”. Also they asserted that “the effects of interactivity reach a ``plateau'' at medium and high levels, indicating a diminishing returns effect. Conversely, the impact of vividness appears to be linear with a steady increase across low, medium, and high level.” (Fortin and Dholakia, 2005:387).

In addition, the influence of the content type and time of posting on the number of comments and likes studied by Sabate et al. (2014) to explain factors influencing the social media popularity. In accordance with Cvijkj & Michahelles (2013) and Fortin and Dholakia (2005), they verified that images, videos and proper publication time are important factors on social media popularity and images have greater impact than videos on customer engagement. Sabate et al. (2014) tested if the posts created on weekdays cause higher customer engagement but cannot approved this hypothesis.

Trustworthy data is crucial for airline companies and online reviews establish a crucial component that airline companies benefit from in order to retrieve data. With this regard, online reviews are valuable for airlines to understand passenger needs and expectations and to make passenger classifications by text mining and sentiment analysis methods. Moreover, search engine data is useful to examine and figure out the short term short-term fluctuations for airline's operations (Punel and Ermagun 2018:67)

Airline companies have various options of resources to collect the big data they need about customers, including but not limited to online reviews, search engine queries, loyalty programs, email subscriptions, etc. From among these, queries on search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, etc.) can collect information not only about the date, time, location and number of the clicks, but also information of more a more personal nature such as age, gender preferences, level of education and occupation. Social media pages have recently been regarded as perhaps the most useful source to collect big data. For example, in 2018 Facebook users shared nearly 5 billion pieces of content on a daily basis. As for Twitter, the number of tweets accumulated to 500 million on per day. It goes without saying that this is a valuable source to tap into order to benefit for marketing purposes. (Punel and Ermagun, 2018)

There is no one-size-fits-all method to analyze big data derived from social media platforms - different methods/tecniques exist. One popular method is to identify and group various communities and based on common information pertaining to the characteristics, preferences and other information related to these communities and groups. For example, it is possible to create a group for “female passengers who prefer to travel with their cats”. The data collected for this identified group might enable the airline company to structure its advertisement against these groups to highlight the airline's “pet-friendly” campaigns. The main idea behind the technique is to cluster “similar” customers. According to Punel and Ermagun (2018) this makes it possible for airline companies to:

* Collect data that can not be capture through traditional methods. Airlines are able to narrow down and target specific groups of passengers, and use keywords and specific formulations to communicate with these groups accordingly.

* Better comprehend the networks, communication lines and interactions within a specific community (i.e. cluster). This makes it possible for the airline to leverage the potential sources for advertising campaigns. It is known that key actors within a group will pass on information, comments and their impressisons about the airline to other individuals wihin a cluster. This can result in an advantageous multiplying effect and increase the impact of the advertising campaign.

* Provide smart, attractive incentives for specific clusters in a cost-effective way by spotting similarities and addressing the real and most urgent needs of the targeted groups.