Some companies take blogging to new heights. One of them is Alaska Airlines. It launched its blog (https://blog.alaskaair.com) in June 2014 and in two years the blog has published more than 230 stories that people are actually reading. Halley Knigge, who signed on with Alaska Airlines in January 2014, runs the blog.
Knigge, a former newspaper and digital reporter, leverages many of the key principles she learned reporting in her work for the Alaska Airlines blog. Her essential skills include newsgathering, interviewing, writing and creating stories, and production
1. What was it like to be in Cordova, Alaska, to cover the opening of the Copper River salmon season for Alaska Airlines’ blog?
Cordova was amazing. During the past two years, I supported the Copper River salmon season opening from Seattle. But having the opportunity this year to travel to south-central Alaska and meet the fishermen and the larger community there, to see firsthand how Alaska Airlines helps them get their prized salmon to market, was an outstanding experience. People in Alaska really support one another. The relationship between Alaska Airlines and the communities we serve in the state of Alaska is different than in the Lower 48. Only three cities in Alaska are connected by road, so many times [our planes] are bringing the groceries and the mail. People really rely on Alaska Airlines. One other thing that I love about Cordova – and other places in Alaska – is that people live by the principle “leave no man behind.” As an example, en route to Cordova from a trip to the Copper River delta, our car got a flat tire and one of the locals stopped to help us. He would not leave until he helped us fix it and made sure we were safely on our way.
2. Can you talk about the value of developing and maintaining the Alaska Airlines’ blog? How has it helped the airline?
The blog has helped us in some significant ways. It allows us to tell great stories about our company and our amazing employees who go “above and beyond” to make the travel experience better for our customers. We also fly to some fascinating destinations like Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the U.S., so we love to tell the stories about the unique places we fly to – ones that often no other airlines serve. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we use the blog to share critical information during storms or other times of irregular operations. For instance, in September 2014, when the category 3 Hurricane Odile slammed into Mexico, we were able to use our blog to communicate and share information about the situation in the cities of Los Cabos, Mazatlán, and Loreto, which was a huge help to many people in both Mexico and the U.S. We also wrote about Operation Ayuda (“help” in Spanish), which was Alaska Airlines’ humanitarian campaign to assist our customers and their families during this very difficult time.
3. What does your blog’s editorial calendar look like? How do you plan and secure content for the blog?
We plan our editorial content on a month-by-month basis and make sure the themes for stories align with our marketing priorities and goals. When we plan stories, we work to ensure they will be valuable when we publish them and stand the test of time. Content needs to be evergreen, meaning it is relevant both today and three to five years from now. For instance, we did a story about how to make air travel easier for children with autism. This story was timely for the blog because of an event we held in Boise, Idaho, where we invited parents and children with autism to “practice the airport.” The topic is still relevant today because we included practical travel tips in the article. This ensures it will be valuable for families and caregivers traveling with children with autism for many years to come.
4. What makes a good blog story for Alaska Air?
Day-of travel tips really resonate with our readers. People always want to know how to travel with less hassle and stress. The other popular topics are the in-depth destination stories. People like to know what they should see that is off the beaten path. They often want to discover something new when they travel. Stories where we can offer expertise that is unique or authentic really resonate with our readers.
5. What are two stories that you are most proud of publishing? And what made them special?
I loved the series Robert Reid wrote about his trip to China earlier this year, starting with A Walk Around Suzhou, China’s Historic Heart. Robert’s writing is beautiful and his pieces helped us educate our readers about Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan partners. His stories were part of an ongoing series that pairs some of my favorite writers with our international airline partners. Our international partners are important and allow our customers to fly to more than 800 destinations worldwide. Many people don’t know this. I am also proud of a recent series we launched featuring our new uniform designer Luly Yang. Luly will be providing fashion-related travel tips for our customers, and who better to share them than an internationally known fashion designer? Our first story, “Flying with Luly: How to pack a wedding dress,” featured videos and step-by-step instructions for packing different styles of wedding dresses. I love this because while it is a very specific, niche piece of content it will be vitally interesting to a very specific group of people: brides traveling to a far-away wedding.
6. How do you measure success for the Alaska Airlines blog?
I look at three things when I judge whether a post resonated with our audience: views (were people interested enough to click into it?), time spent on page (did most people actually read it?) and engagement (if people read it, were they engaged enough to share it with their friends or leave a comment?). These three metrics work together to give me key insights that help me plan future stories, and of all three, I place the least weight on views. One post may get 40,000 views, while another gets just 5,000, but depending on the other metrics I may deem them both a success. For example, the post about making travel easier for children on the autism spectrum is at the lower end of that view range, but had an average time spent on page of more than four minutes and an engagement rate of more than 50 percent. That tells me that we created a piece of content that was uniquely valuable to a very specific, highly engaged audience, and at the end of the day were able to help make travel easier for some of our customers. So far in 2016, we’ve averaged more than four minutes per story (weighted for views) each month. To me, that is a success.
7. How do you think the communications landscape will continue to change?
Blogging and content creation will continue to be important for companies. The communications landscape is changing, but there will always be an opportunity to apply the skills from traditional journalism to tell authentic and credible stories that help people. This is one of the things that I love about my job. The skills I learned as a reporter I can apply to telling Alaska Airlines’ story.
Tags: Alaska Airlines, Alaska Airlines Blog, Q&A, Value of company blogging Filed under: Business to Business, COMMUNIQUÉ PR, INDUSTRY, PUBLIC RELATIONS, Strategy