( CNN ) -- You may tell your airline if you prefer an aisle seat to a window seat or if you 'd rather have chicken than pasta . Some things , however , like the fact that you pick all the cashews from the mixed nuts , or that you always drink a gin and tonic in the airline lounge , you might not . Lately , though , airlines have a way of knowing your preferences , even when you do n't tell them . The culprit ? Social media , of course . Recently Qantas started a tryout to monitor digital conversations on social-media sites like Twitter or on Facebook . The technology comes from Australian start-up Local Measure , and it allows corporate clients to search not by keyword but by GPS coordinates . As a result , when a customer posts a picture on Instagram ( even one without a caption ) from one of ten Qantas airport lounges , the customer care team is alerted immediately . `` It allows us to pinpoint customer feedback to a specific location . If someone raises an issue , it gives our lounge staff the ability to step in and resolve the problem , '' says Jo Boundy , head of digital communication at Qantas . If a customer groans on Twitter about a long line at the coffee counter or a broken printer in the business lounge , Qantas can respond in real time . According to Jonathan Barouch , chief executive at Local Measure , other airlines will be soon introducing the technology to their lounges as well , allowing the companies not only to respond to problems , but to anticipate them as well . `` It helps our clients better understand what people are thinking about their experience , '' he says . Read more : How high-end airline meals are made . For example , Barouch says , a customer recently tweeted a picture of cereals on offer at the Qantas first-class lounge and noted that his favorite was absent . The next time he visited the lounge , the cereal was there . `` Qantas knew how to surprise and delight the consumer . It 's all little things , but they do add up , '' he says . Because of the speed with which a staff member can respond on Twitter or Facebook , social media has quickly become a favored platform for airlines ' customer service . KLM Royal Dutch Airlines employs 130 people to monitor different social-media platforms , including VKontakte , a social networking website popular among Russian-speaking users , and Sina Weibo , the Chinese equivalent of Twitter . Social media has become such a popular medium for KLM customers that the company introduced an estimated service response time to their Twitter account , even though the ability to do so is n't built into Twitter ( KLM works around this by updating the background image every five minutes ) . For the most part , response times hover around one hour . Read more : Airline upgrades are now up for action . `` We decided to put our money where our mouth is and show our real-time performance , '' says Martijn van der Zee , senior vice president of e-commerce for Air France-KLM . Reflecting how attuned the company is to their online followers and customers , their suggestions help KLM create new products and services , including one introduced last week that allows non-passengers to purchase upgrades and gifts for friends and family traveling with the airline . Other ideas developed from social media are destination guides based on cabin-crew favorite spots , and a service that allows staff members sweep planes for forgotten wallets , tablets and mobile phones , and contact the customers ( sometimes before they realize their item is missing ) . `` If these were suggested to me four years ago , I might have said , 'These are n't relevant , ' but now we know that they are , because we get messages coming in every day telling us they are , '' says van der Zee . `` We have 30,000 interactions a week . That 's a lot of input , and it 's motivated us to keep pushing the envelope . ''
Social media has become a favored platform for ' customer service . Emirates has started a team to monitor digital content on social - media sites like Twitter or on Facebook . KLM has staff ##s to monitor different social - media platforms .