Do you have to be a celeb to tweet for airline help?

“We consider ourselves more of an information booth rather than a customer service counter,” public communications manager Morgan Johnston said.

Johnston says all JetBlue customers are equally important, but someone with a larger voice may get noticed, and responded to by the team, faster.

Ostrow recommends using the company’s Twitter name in your complaint to get noticed, as most teams are set up to monitor for these mentions. He also suggests keeping your character count short so that others can easily retweet and share their own thoughts on the issue.

In her Mashable article “HOW TO: Get Your Feedback Heard on Social Networks,” media director Mollie Vandor offers additional tips.

“First, always remember that the person on the other end of Twitter is, well, a person,” Vandor writes. “Patience is key. You will get a better response if you give your recipient some time to look into the issue before they respond.”

She also suggests avoiding people at the top of the company, instead looking for people who mention user experience, community or support on their Twitter profiles.

Most of all, it’s important to hit the normal channels first before going on a social media rant, Travel Leaders’ Loucks said — give the system time to work and only try the more high profile online complaints if the company doesn’t respond satisfactorily.

“We’d want to know about it not only because we want happy customers but because we want to make sure that that never happens again.”