On a recent business trip most of my time in the airport was spent drinking coffee and arguing with my colleagues over whether or not an investment in a neck pillow would be worth it. Pretty boring when compared to what some travelers on Dutch airline KLM experienced recently. The video is a bit long (5:32) but definitely entertaining. KLM launched a social campaign involved a team of people identifying KLM passengers waiting for flights who had just checked in on Foursquare.

The KLM team then logged into Twitter and Facebook to find out a little more about the passengers and their destination. The passengers were then surprised with carry on gifts to make their flights a little more enjoyable right before they boarded.

Great job by KLM leveraging 3 different social platforms.

Just when you thought social media could not get any bigger, you were mistaken. Social media, more specifically FourSquare and Twitter, have gone UNIVERSAL (Twitter actually made it to space in 2009, just never in conjunction with geo-based marketing). As if taking over the world was not enough for these two social media powerhouses, they have just been introduced to outer space by NASA Astronaut Douglas Wheelock.

The check in from outer space marks the beginning of a partnership between FourSquare and NASA and the launch of NASA’s FourSquare page. Users can now check in to various NASA locations in order to unlock the “NASA Explorer” badge. Something that would-never-be astronauts can strive to do, in order to be as close to space as possible…without ever getting there.

Check out the NASA FourSquare page here…