We’ve helped Twitter take-off at Manchester Airport

We’ve been fans of Twitter here at KMP for some time now, long before johnny-come-latelys like @wossy and @oprah got on board. But it’s only recently, with the popularisation of the service, that it has become truly relevant to our consumer facing clients.

We’ve been involved in discussions with various departments at Manchester Airport deciding how Twitter can be used to best serve the Airport and its customers. One point that was quickly established is we wanted the Airport staff to be the ones doing the tweeting – although  we provided training and are of course on hand for guidance as required. So on Friday KMP took the stabilisers of the Manchester Airport Twitter stream and watched proudly as they carried on pedaling without us holding on.

This did not go unnoticed. Almost immediately we were contacted by the keen press-hounds at How-Do wanting to know more. A good sign we think.

The in-house team at the airport will be tweeting initially as an extension of the normal set of channels used to communicate with customers. But the flow of information won’t be all one way. In discussions and training, we have championed Twitter search as part of a set of simple tools for brand monitoring and the team will likely be doing at least as much listening as talking.

Cool stuff

Of course, for geeks like us, one of the best things about twitter is its extensive API. Our dev team have enjoyed experimenting with this, despite twitter’s fondness for changing the API rules just as we think we’ve got an app finished.

We’ve got a couple of applications in the pipeline for the Airport that will add value to the twitter offering and provide valuable functionality to twitter users.

Firstly, we have plugged twitter into the service that provides live flight information for all flights in and out of Manchester airport. Once this is live users will be able to receive live flight updates by twitter DM (direct message).

We’re also working with the retail team on providing a special offer for twitter users. That’s all I can reveal for now, if you want to know more you’ll have to follow twitter.com/manairport!