I wonder whether this is actually a good marketing technique.
The net is that they will offer tickets to a few "twitter pros" that may have no interest in the destination and in the travel industry and will p. off the vast majority of twitter influencers that do not make the list. Within this list, many people are in the magic middle, including people highly influencial in the travel industry.
If you were one of the naysayers about Twitter saying that the micro-blogging site has no real purpose, here’s a good one. Virgin America is offering free flights to those who tweet with influence.
According to Mashable, VA is tracking “users’ influence” and offering free flights between San Francisco (SFO) and Los Angeles (LAX) to VA’s latest destination, Toronto (YYZ). The tweeters don’t even have to post 140-character posts about Virgin America; they just have to generate a lot of traffic, have many followers, etc.
The flight will include free Wi-Fi (presumably to tweet the whole way), and the tickets are valid between today and August 23. So, presumably, this promotion is going to get started right away. The lucky chosen passengers will also be invited to a VA-Toronto launch party on June 29.
VA already has the reputation of being a tech-friendly, hip domestic airline. Lots of other airlines have active Twitter accounts with special deals (like JetBlue and its occasional bargain basement last-minute fares) but this goes way above what other airlines have attempted. It’s also a pretty nifty and original PR tactic, so it will be interesting to see what this does for the airline and its new route.
