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Shashank Nigam is the CEO of SimpliFlying.com, an award-winning blog on airline branding. He tweets at @simpliflying.

Social media is no longer the “new” thing, especially for airlines. JetBlue has over one an a half million followers on Twitter. Lufthansa allows passengers to update their Twitter or Facebook status about where they are in the sky. AirAsia drives buzz about its new destinations through custom micro-sites. However, most airlines (and airports and hotels) are still struggling to earn direct revenue from their social media efforts.

Yet if Dell can make $6.5 million from Twitter, why can’t airlines? Here are five ways that social media can directly drive dollars for airlines (and other travel companies, like hotels).

1. Clear Distressed Inventory on Twitter

Running an airline or hotel is much like running a cinema. It costs about the same to operate the hall (and the plane/hotel) no matter how many seats or rooms are filled up. Any unsold seats or rooms at the last minute are called “distressed inventory.” Combine the last-minute nature of such seat/room availability with the real-time features of tools like Twitter and you create the opportunity for airlines and hotels to generate cold, hard cash.

United Airlines recently launched Twares, where it clears off seats for the upcoming weekend every Wednesday and Thursday. JetBlue’s Cheeps program works along similar lines. All it takes is to create a separate fare category in the revenue management system for such deals and have one person put them out on Twitter, once or twice each week, after looking at how full the flights are.

Of course, you have to set clear expectations with your followers that the account will only be sending out deals, and is not a customer service vehicle.

Ultimately, using real-time platforms like Twitter helps the airline circulate cheap fares and get people to fly more often, or even for the first time. Hotels could similarly post unfilled room inventory on Twitter. Ultimately this fills up the planes and hotels and drives more revenue.

2. Infuse Social Media Reviews Into the Booking Engine

Done correctly, ratings and reviews deliver a significant increase in sales. One third of retailers reported an 11-20% or more overall increase in conversions as a result of adding reviews to their sites, while consumers are willing to pay up to 22-49% more for a 5-star rated product than for a 4-star rated product in the hospitality and travel industries.

For airlines, leveraging reviews correctly requires integrating them into the booking path when a person is searching for flights, especially at the point when the potential customer is most likely to convert into a sale — similar to how many airlines integrate selling travel insurance.

The critical factor here is to be transparent about where the reviews are coming from. They shouldn’t look made-up at all. Stating that reviews come from a source like TripAdvisor or Skytrax only further establishes trust.

3. Integrate with Social Media Travel Applications

People around the world are using applications like TripIt and Dopplr to announce their travel intentions and plans to their friends well before the journey actually takes place. I personally share my plans up to two months in advance.

These status updates are also often integrated with generic social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, allowing a whole network of friends to find out where the person intends to travel to.

As an executive at a travel company, what more could you ask for than the intentions of a prospective customer to travel to a destination you serve? Because most of these applications have open APIs, airlines and hotels can pull the data being submitted and build custom applications using it.

For example, an airline could integrate TripIt data with their frequent flier database to create a list of their loyal customers and the destinations those customers are planning to visit. The airline could then reach out to them with a custom-tailored travel deal.

4. Create Private Online Communities

The social web offers a great opportunity for travel companies to create private online communities to give some of their loyal customers an exclusive experience. By targeting socially influential customers, these frequent travelers could be nudged toward becoming true brand ambassadors.

Creating an experience that offers exclusivity and privilege doesn’t have to cost big bucks — companies could start with basic white-label social networking tools like Ning. Offering that experience to select customers will increase their loyalty and the likelihood that those customers will evangelize the brand to fellow travelers.

5. Remember: Social Media is About Relationships

Imagine going to a cookout, only to see one of the guests waving a CD for some new software program, and shouting “new release, buy today!” That person would be completely out of place, and probably ignored by most of the other attendees.

It’s important to remember that social media is always about relationships first.

A good example of relationship building is Lufthansa’s MySkyStatus, which allows you to share your location with your Facebook and Twitter friends during the flight. Right now, it’s not generating any revenue for Lufthansa, but if they integrate a field to input a passenger’s frequent flyer number, they might be able to mine the data for some unique insights. However, right now, they’re concentrating on building a relationship with passengers through social media, not hammering them with ads.

It is important to always set the right expectations with your fans or followers on what you’re going to be doing. If you’re only selling seats or rooms, let them know. If you’re providing customer service, let them know that, too.

More business resources from Mashable:

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- Social Media Marketing: How Pepsi Got It Right
– How Social Media Helps One Small Business Connect with Fans
– 5 Ways Small Businesses Can Avoid Social Media Panic
– HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
– The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration
– HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, craftvision, pidjoe, Barghest, gchutka

Tags: airline, Airlines, business, Flying, hospitality, Hotel, hotels, List, Lists, MARKETING, small business, social media, travel

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