KLM’s Meet & Seat Social Seating Is Live

Last year we told you that KLM would launch its social seating service in 2012. Well, Meet & Seat is live now. Facebook and LinkedIn users can now meet interesting passengers on their flight.

What is Meet & Seat? Our industry tends to call it social seating. As seen at i.e. TicketMaster before.

Meet & Seat lets you find out about interesting people who will be on board of your KLM flight, such as other passengers attending the same event as you at your destination.

How does it work?

Simply share your Facebook or LinkedIn profile through the KLM Booking Engine. Next, check other passengers’ profile details and where they’ll be sitting.

Meet & Seat is a new service and now available for:
– Bookings with 1 passenger
– KLM flights between Amsterdam and New York, San Francisco and Sao Paulo
– From 90 days until 48 hours before departure

KLM is working on making its social seating service available on other KLM flights as well.

The cool thing about KLM? They have been using social media in a smart way for almost 2 years, in a very innovative way.

But more important, KLM is more dedicated than many other brands, to use social media and social technologies to add relevancy and meaningfulness to the lives of its clients.

Where most brands are on a tactical level, chasing social channels just to reach people with their social ads, KLM is taking the strategic approach, taking social way beyond advertising.

So where most brands have embraced social advertising, KLM is CRM driven, and using social to its fans through the funnel – towards trial, loyalty and advocacy.

So social branding should be all about building mutual beneficial relationships between people and brands. And that’s why many CMOs need to unthink the way they have been social until today.

KLM might be able a brand to follow and analyze, chasing social channels to reach consumers might be what CMOs should leave to their Media Managers and Media agencies?

In my opinion the last 2 mentioned, should be aware that by its nature brand advertising has always been interruptive, distracting, selfish, one-way mind-jacking…

Nowadays, digital and social branding means that consumers are more critical towards too many overpromising ads. Modern consumers are digital dictators that expects brands to add meaningfulness to their lives as well.

So here lies a concrete action point for the CMOs; adding that relevancy and pieces of meaningfulness.

See my former articles about KLM here: KLM Social Seating, Fly2Miami, Community Strategy and Fly For Fortune.

Please share your opinion on KLM, brand advertising or meaningfulness in the comments below.