“Social media is only used by kids and salespeople.”
“Maybe you can sell retail products like games and music downloads on social media, but it’s of no use for complex or business to business sales.”
“An occasional marketing message on social media every once in awhile is plenty.”

Our Social Media Survey Results report busts these myths – at least for aviation professionals. We asked aviation professionals which social media channels they personally use most often, as well as which channels they use for marketing. We provide the complete results to our clients and members, but here’s a summary of some of the highlights.

Who Responded to Our Survey?

A fairly wide cross section of aviation companies responded to the survey, including a large number of aviation training organizations, aviation consultants, B2B (Business to Business) service providers, B2B product manufacturers, FBOs, Airport Authorities, MROs, Charter Organizations and Aviation Product Retailers. This belies the myth that only B2C (Business to Consumer) marketing professionals are interested in social media.

The next question asked about the respondent’s position in the company. Again, we received a large number of respnoses from founders and C-Level executives. This contradicts the sterotype that social media is for lower-level executives, operatives and salespeople.

How often do you access any Social Media Channel?

Last year, we were surprised to find that 50% of our respondents used social media more than once a day. Apparently, that trend is continuing, with 58% of respondents reporting use some social media channels more than once per day. Infrequent users are also decreasing.

For more detail, we asked respondents to report how often they used each of these channels.

The most frequently accessed channels LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter.
Google Plus, Pinterest, Instagram, and Reddit were used far less frequently.
If you sell a product or service to aviation professionals, this is where your customers are spending their time:

We asked how often respondent used these channels for advertising. There is a still a large gap between personal use and marketing use. . . which to us, looks like an opportunity! Your customers are using social media personally, but your competitors are not using it to market their products. . . Hmmm. . .

Last note – Age of Social Media users:

One question we did NOT include in our survey was this – aren’t LinkedIn users older than Facebook users? Surprisingly, not much! This chart from December 2014 survey by Business Insider (sent to us by Kathryn Creedy) and is not limited to aviation professionals, but still an interesting note!

What changes do you expect to make this year?

Some of the our respondents added comments about the changes they expect to make this year:

Increasing use of social media to curate as well as create.
Steady growth and use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram in that order. Greater use of video and possibly start using Vimeo
More focus on education and content marketing both for my business and my clients
I am always looking for new aviation networks to expand business horizons and contact bases
We expect usage to grow, overall.
For people in business to take social media more seriously
I expect more educational advertising and job ads.
We are establishing a new website for the company, with links to Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as starting a conventional Billboard Marketing campaign.
Increased Twitter presence
We have just started using LinkedIn in the last few weeks and will be using it more often over the next year.
If business follows the trend of young adults (twenty-somethings), Facebook (personal), for example, will be utilized less & less. LinkedIn will continue to show strength.
No one uses Google+.
The use of Instagram, Periscope and ramping up YouTube.
To reach my followers and let them know about new stuff we have available
Increase in use as more and more interactions move to this space
I am hoping for big changes. Here at <<Omitted>>the directors are stuck in the Dark Ages and have not invested any time in to marketing via social media at all. Now as part of a government scheme called Sharing in Growth, we are starting to look at this tentatively, but a lot more needs to be done
Increased use of Facebook and Twitter for business
Increased activity to send of company information instead of print media
We want to do more with Linked In and will probably explore Google +