Vegas Joins the Social Media Club

I read yesterday that Las Vegas Airport has launched official Facebook and Twitter pages. I'm very happy about this a it's a good sign that more large airports are starting to get involved in social media. So far, it's really been the smaller airports that are taking the lead here. Richmond Airport, for example, has 25 times more Twitter followers than Vegas, even though Vegas has 11 times more passengers! One possible reason for small airports being dominant in this area is that social media might take a bit less work when you have less passengers - so you would (hopefully) be dealing with less passenger comments. Second, smaller cities often use Twitter as part of a way to help advertise new service. Vegas has to fight a bit less to keep domestic nonstops than other cities, I think.

But I think the airport will find Twitter and Facebok really useful, though fortunately Vegas doesn't often have to deal with one of the best uses of social media for airports -  updates on bad winter weather. But social media is a great way to let travelers know about backups at security, the availability of parking, if there are any cancellations, and it can also be used to promote airport businesses.

Below you can see a couple of screenshots of what they've been saying. The airport has only been doing this for a couple of days, so the key here is that they keep up with it out a regular basis.