Corporate Identity Management on Social Media: An Analysis of Airline companies’ representation of their Corporate Identity through YouTube Content

In this new digital era, establishing a unique identity in such a highly competitive and dynamic global market is absolutely vital for the existence of a company (Postman, 2009; Mangold & Faulds, 2009; Packer, 2010; Kaplan & Haelein, 2011; Waters & Jones, 2011). An organization’s corporate identity may be seen as a resourceful concept as it encompasses a company’s ethos, its values and reason for existence; it presents a sense of individuality that can facilitate differentiation as well as outstand a company from its competitors (Hatch & Schultz, 1997). Due to the nature of the industry, namely a service driven sector, establishing a unique identity in such a highly competitive and monogamous market, has been argued to be very challenging (Balmer & Gray, 2000). The purpose of this study is to examine the ways in which airline companies are creating YouTube content that may contribute to shaping a unique corporate identity. This study will apply a qualitative content analysis of airline’s YouTube videos, which will be selected based on the most popular ranking of these videos. There will be a total of 10 Airline companies selected for this study, which will be chosen according to the SKYTRAX awards (2014). From the study on Airline’s YouTube videos the following can be said regarding the ways in which this particular type of content contributes to shaping a corporate identity for companies in the airline industry; namely, certain values of a corporate identity become reinforced with the use of YouTube content. The first set of values may be considered to derive from the product and service of airline companies more specifically by portraying elements of a unique onboard passenger experience. The second set of values which contributes to shaping a corporate identity derives from the employee culture of airline companies, namely by framing flight attendants and other staff members in a distinct form. The values of airline companies corporate identity may be distinguished according to the recipients of the YouTube videos, namely certain values of a corporate identity are catered to the external audience specifically, like unique onboard experience. Where as some values of airline’s corporate identity are directed towards an internal audience, like the airline’s employees. While another set of particular values of a corporate identity can be further grouped as serving the internal as well the external audience at the same time, such as corporate visual design applications.