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Fortunately, I pushed the button! Today I don’t hesitate to confirm my past thoughts: Indeed! I already gained a lot from blogging! And do you know what? Recently, my blog won the Euprera Social Media Award 2010 for the best student blog at the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (Euprera) Spring Symposium in Ghent, Belgium. This year the University College Arteveldehogeschool hosted the event (I was impressed by the modern campus). Wow! I’m speechless and very happy about that!

Last but not least, I would also like to thank Anderson Lima who run the PR and New Media Module at Leeds Metropolitan University last year for the insights into social media and Richard Bailey through whose blog I took notice of the Euprera Social Media Award.

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Golden seashore, blue ocean made of sparkling breakwater, warm sunbeams stroking your skin – finally, the tropical dream came true. Unfortunately, not for me but for the British charity fundraiser Ben Southall, 34: He was one of the 16 finalists who recently spend three days swimming, snorkeling, diving and lounging under the close scrutiny of Queensland Tourism officials. They psychometrically tested the candidates for the ‘Best Job in the World’, the ‘Islandreef Job’ (read my recent posts number one and number two about the competition to get more information and the latest press release published by Queensland Tourism). Ben Southall staved off competition from almost 35,000 worldwide applicants to secure the post and was awarded the $150,000 (£73,000) contract beginning July 1 to serve as the caretaker of a tropical Australian Island. He now has the chance to swim, explore and relax on Hamilton island, in the Great Barrier Reef, for six months while writing a blog to (source: The Guardian). If you like to read his blog click here.

A successful social media campaign and its imitators

The recruitment for the ‘Best Job in the World’ was part of Tourism Queensland’s Islands of the Great Barrier Reef Campaign. The cooperative marketing campaign aimed to highlight the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef and showcase Australia’s own unique Island experience, to the global market (source: press release published by Tourism Queensland). I think, I don’t need to tell you again that influential newspapers like The Guardian, The Mirror or BBC or German newspapers like Der Spiegel or Der Focus picked up the story once more among other media. According to Der Spiegel the marketing campaign exceeded all expectations of Tourism Queensland: Tourism director Anthony Hayes is of the opinion that there will be more bookings within the next 12 month at the end of the campaign. Probably the ranger casting will become an annual event? In anyway, there are already imitators of the campaign: According to Der Spiegel Taiwan thinks about starting a similar competition to promote its tourism.

‘The moral of the story’

What remains to say? As mentioned in earlier posts the ‘Islandreef Job’ competition was a striking campaign idea which was based on some remarkable PR and marketing decisions like the concept of the admirable independent blogger like you and me, the integration of the audience in the voting and the content-rich website (read my recent blog post) and supported by social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube (read my recent blog post). Doubtlessly, a short-term campaign success. Will it become a long-term success, too? Only time can tell.

Old photos – horrific experiences or great fun? Whatever you think when you recognize yourself on an old photo I’m sure it evokes certain emotions. I think it’s a great fun to rummage in old photo albums with friends – sometimes wondering how different we looked when we where younger or just remembering good times we spent together. That is why I try to have my digital camera with me whenever possible to catch all the versatile chapters in life. Over the years my computer became my digital photo album which I can organize easily thanks to the technical development.

Welcome to the online photography world

If you not only want to share your photos with your family and friends at home Flickr gives you the easy opportunity to share them with the whole internet (klick here to read wikipedia’s description). To say it with Amy Shuen’s words: “Flickr essentially gives away the services that amateur photographers need and want most: Photo sharing; online storage; and indexing, tagging and photo inventory.”

But Flickr is not only to the amateur photographer’s advantage who can organize his photos, drops into a creative photo database or may even be discovered if talented – it is an interesting communication platform from the corporate perspective, too.

Flickr stream: “Michel Comte Retrospektive”

I’m sure you have heard of Michel Comte, one of the most sought-after fashion and magazine photographers in the world (he portrays numerous celebrities from the world of art, music and entertainment. In addition to portrait photography and fashion he moved towards photo-reportage and documentary). Currently, the exhibition “Michel Comte Retrospektive” can be visited in the ‚NRW-Forum Kultur und Wirtschaft’ in Duesseldorf, Germany.

Michel Comte – 360° from nrwforumduesseldorf on Vimeo.

To promote the exhibition a number of Web. 2.0 tools were used like communication via the website of the ‘NRW Forum’ and a blog which reflects the course of the exhibition. But the most noteworthy idea was to create a Flickr stream. Especially in this case it was a very good idea to put a photo show on Flickr – a platform where all the passionate photographer’s come together to share and exchange their experiences about photography. Doubtlessly, these people are the prospective visitors of the exhibition. To my mind a promising step in the communication concept of the exhibition.

Benefit from Flickr as a professional

To end up for today I’d like to point out two tips of Seth Godin how you can benefit from Flickr as a professional. You will find a full description of them in his blog post ‘Where to find great ideas and arresting images (for free)’:

1. If you need photos for a presentation or website or brochure, try Flickr.

2. When you are trying to brainstorm, Flickr is a great place to find connections between ideas that hadn’t occurred to you.

Why not try them out on the job floor?

Did you know that London has got a premier blogging pigeon? You don’t? No problem at all! To be honest, I haven’t heard of it, too, until I started planning a trip to the city some time ago. I came over the ‘Pigeon Blog’ by chance while searching for insider tips about London. Since then I can’t get the interesting idea of a blogging pigeon out of my head.

So who is ‘London’s premier blogging pigeon’? His name is Brian Pigeon. He’s living in Soho, on Beak Street, right above Bistro 1. “Soho Square’s a great place to hang too, especially in the summer. Bread bits everywhere. Heaven for the pigeon”, he says in an interview published at www.londonist.com. But what the hell does a pigeon blog about? ‘The infamous Brian of Pigeon Blog fills us in on everything from why London rocks, what’s up with the squirrels and what happens when the pigeons party in Piccadilly Circus‘. Marvelous! I love the idea of describing London through the eyes of a pigeon in a blog! Reading Brian Pigeon’s blog was a funny variety while searching for tips for my trip. Incidentally I got information about the city, too, that were different from those repeating voices about London you find all over the web on official travel websites.

Besides the stories about London the pigeon blog tries to entertain with some pigeon videos, too. To my mind, the content is better than the videos, but that’s a matter of taste.

Tell your story

The pigeon blog is an interesting example for the nature of blogs: Blogs are written by somebody who is passionate about a specific topic and wants to tell the world about it. The blog of Brian Pigeon is an unusual one, of course – but does this matter? Yes, he’s claims to be a genuine urban pigeon describing the life of pigeon’s in London – but still, he’s an independent voice in the blogosphere, too. And as you can see from my trip-example, bloggers – whoever they are – became an valuable and important alternative source for information nowadays (I came across some other interesting blogs and unofficial websites about London, too. Check them out, if you plan a trip to London:, ‘diamondgreezer’, ‘london underground’,‘london.thewayweseeit’, ‘londonist’,londonreviewofbreakfasts’, ‘kudocities london’, ‘derelictlondon’etc.).

Blogs – a viable channel for corporate communications

But not only think about all the individual bloggers, like Brian Pigeon, who make their voice heard in the internet. Think about corporate blogs, too: Blogging can be an incredible tool for a company, e.g. to reach and inform customers, to generate talk about a product or the company as a whole and to build goodwill. While investing little – as a blogs are simple to set up – companies can establish strong and interactive communication directly with the customer (By the way, I really love the following truthful quote of David Meerman Scott: “If you can use Microsoft Word or successfully buy a product online from Amazon, you have enough technical skills to blog.”). Based on my own experiences as a customer I’m convinced that customers profit from the increased access to dialogue, too: Isn’t it a good thing to get more useful information and support from a company, for example?

Surely, blogs can be used in different ways by companies. I’d like to point out ‘The Three Uses of Blogs for Marketing and PR’ by David Meerman Scott (‘The New Rules of Marketing & PR – How to use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing & online media to reach buyers directly’):

1. To easily monitor what millions of people are saying about you, the market you sell into, your organization and its products.
2. To participate in those conversations by commenting on other people’s blog.
3. To begin to shape those conversations by creating and writing your own blog.

You see, there are good reasons for companies to enter the blogosphere (read more about corporate blogs at Brian Solis’blog e.g. post a) post b))! And never underestimate a blogger like Brian Pigeon – a voice is a voice, no matter who it is belonging to: it can shape the conversation about a company! Think about this excerpt from the above mentioned interview with Brian Pigeon: “How and why did you start blogging? I started the whole thing as a bit of a laugh really. Just the day-to-day doings of a London pigeon. Never thought it would catch on. To be honest, I wasn’t sure anyone was going to be that interested in a pigeon’s point of view. Just goes to show. Jesus. Last year I even got into the Time Out Top 50 London websites, and all I do is go on about stuff we pigeons get up to. Amazing, really.” Indeed!

Do you like to get a deeper insight into corporate blogs? Check the following links to get an idea how different companies set up their blog:

McDonald’s corporate social responsibility blog

Wells Fargo Blogs

Microsoft Community Blogs

Hewlett-Packard employee business blogs

Sun employee blog

Golden seashore or muddy paths? Blue ocean made of sparkling breakwater or grey waterfalls made of gloomy raindrops? Warm sunbeams stroking your skin or cold wind biting your face? What would you choose?

If you ask me, I would definitely go for the first summer-like options of all these questions! But I’m afraid, that’s too good to be true! To be honest, I’m catched in the rainy present. I recently flow back to Germany for a short stay. Guess my state when I came here: soaked to the skin – as the wind teared my umbrella to pieces when I left the airport! Gone are the thoughts of summer (at the moment even the ones of spring).

£70,000 for blogging?

Nevertheless, the summer-like options that I’ve mentioned at the beginning of my post could become reality for a lucky blogger soon: Have you already heard about ‘The Best Job in the World, the ‘Island Reef Job’? I could imagine you have because it’s a current topic in the media (e.g. BBC, UK or Der Spiegel, Germany). For the ones how may have not I found this brief summary of what’s behind it on BBC. Or watch the YouTube video below. I think that moving pictures are worth a thousand words in this context (please, ignore the advertisement prior to the start of the footage. For the ones how prefer reading please check the following press releases published by Tourism Queensland: press release 1, press release 2).

£70,000 ($150,000) salary for weekly blogging about your experiences on the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef/ Australia including a photo diary and video updates over six month? Additionally, living rent-free in a three-bedroom villa, complete with pool on Hamilton Island, one of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef? It’s tempting, isn’t it? All interested candidates were required to create a video application among other things explaining why they are the best person for the job. Currently, the top-50-shortlist from over 34,000 applicants is announced on the website. Tourism Queensland will choose ten candidates for the final application-round. Additionally, a Wild Card candidate will be selected by the visitors of the website. Finally, the winner will be named on May 6^th 2009.

A striking campaign

I think the idea behind this campaign is striking: According to one of the press releases published by Tourism Queensland “The recruitment for the ‘Best Job in the World’ is part of Tourism Queensland’s Islands of the Great Barrier Reef Campaign (…) The cooperative marketing campaign aims to highlight the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef and showcase Australia’s own unique Island experience, to the global market.”

For me some remarkable PR and marketing decisions lay the foundation of the  ‘Best Job in the World’ campaign. I just want to name the three that impress me most:

1. The ‘independent blogger’:

To my mind, it’s quite a clever strategy to choose a person like you and me for the job who gets the sympathy of the audience right from the start through the entertaining application-video. Later on, the winner will begin to shape the conversations about the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef by writing the blog. I could imagine this person will then be seen as a independent, trustworthy and authentic blogger with passion instead of an employee of Tourism Queensland by most of the audience.

2. Activating the audience:

I’m sure, the fact that people can vote for the potential candidates for the job even increases the sympathy they have for the candidates and stresses the willingness to follow the blog of the later winner. Moreover, the visitors of the website take a closer look to the content provided about the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef’s tourism.

3. A content-rich website:

The website of the contest seems to be a first successful step to promote the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef’s tourism. Incidentally, the visitors get access to photos, videos and travelling suggestions. There is also a well-considered media-centre with additional information for journalists e.g. fact sheets, images and footage. Especially the story ideas in this section seem to be interesting. I could imagine that many journalists welcome stories like  “Some of the best island holiday ideas for backpackers”.

All in all, the campaign seems to trigger impressing viral-marketing-effects. If you want to learn more about the success of the campaign and it’s reasons it’s worth reading Chris Thomas’ blog post! What do you think about it?

Rain in front of the window but fun in front of the computer

In the end, I will remain blogging despite the rainy weather outside. Perhaps, it’s the same with you? Than we should at least have some fun and watch two of the top-50-application-videos. I’ve picket out one of a German and one of an UK applicant for you – but feel free to watch other application-videos, too! Let’s start enjoying our-selves!

Achim, Germany:

Sarah Louise, UK: