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Storm Twitter Rail

Tweets to rail companies up 3000% following #UKstorm2013, with TfL receiving most anger

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By Ishbel Macleod, PR and social media consultant

October 31, 2013 | 2 min read

Tweets to rail companies and national bodies increased 3000 per cent this week compared to last week following UK storm St Jude, research from Way to Blue has found.It was found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that there was a significant decrease in favourability from a pre storm figure of 89 per cent down to 65 per cent, with negative sentiment up to 10 per cent on storm day.Southeastern had the most popular tweet related to the storm, posted on Sunday to inform its customers that there would be no trains until they had been given the all clear by Network Rail.

The most retweeted railway bodies and operating companies were Network Rail, National Rail and Southeastern Railway, while TFL, First Capital Connect and First Great Western had the least retweets.Marcos Angelides, social media director at Way To Blue, said: “Monday’s storm illustrated how people use social media to keep up to date on real-time events. As a result, the rail groups who actively shared information were able to help people plan their day and ultimately reduce frustrations.“It’s a great example of the role of customer service. Although brands can’t control events like the weather they can control how they update their customers. Being honest and upfront really is the best policy.”TFL received the highest level of negative sentiment in relation to the UK storm, seemingly because people couldn’t understand why an ‘underground’ network would be affected by the weather.
Storm Twitter Rail

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