Australia’s low fares leader Jetstar has announced a move to increase its social media budget for the next financial year to up to 40 per cent of its total marketing budget.

The significant shift in marketing spend shows Jetstar’s increased focus on social media and acknowledges the significance of social and digital media as a marketing tool.

Jetstar Head of Marketing and PR, David May, said they had ‘tested the waters’ of social media during 2009 with huge success, and with other traditional media becoming more expensive and fragmented, social media was the next obvious medium for marketing.

“We’ve conducted some very successful marketing and PR campaigns via social media in the past 18 months, including YouTube and Twitter, and the response has been phenomenal,” Mr May said.

“The increase in costs of traditional media compared with the audience reach is significantly higher than with social media, where you can potentially reach hundreds of thousands of consumers with the one simple online message – and digital TV isn’t filling the gap.

“It’s clear our customers are comfortable in the online space and as Jetstar is essentially an online retailer, it makes sense for us to embrace social media outlets. Online media channels gives us immediate access to our consumers and is just another way Jetstar is utilising digital technology in an innovative way,” he said.

“Social media offers more value for money and is a smarter way to reach our customers – which is what Jetstar is all about,” Mr May said.

Jetstar uses social media for new route launches, special offers and announcements, responding to customer queries and posting sale and news updates daily.

In May last year, Jetstar conducted a sale exclusively on Twitter as part of its 5th Birthday celebrations. The campaign offered 1,000 seats for two cents – selling them all in a matter of hours. Jetstar has more than 6,000 followers on Twitter in Australia.

Jetstar also announced a new route launch using Twitter with a "free seats" sale offering 10,000 free seats on its new Sydney-Melbourne services in August last year.

More recently Jetstar launched the Customer Charter on their YouTube channel www.youtube.com/jetstarairways.

Richard Smith, Managing Director of Maxus, Jetstar’s media buying agency, said he was supportive of Jetstar’s increased focus on social and digital media.

“In line with the increasing need to talk to smaller, interconnected communities; communities that when aggregated deliver large numbers of engaged and involved brand advocates, we are likely to shift a large percentage of Jetstar's above the line media spend into digital areas, with an increased focus on social media, Mr Smith said.

Follow Jetstar on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jetstarairways