Part 2: German Tourism Brands on Facebook

Here is an interesting Update on the current Tourism Brands on Facebook and their development. Just 6 months ago, I had a detailed look at all the important channels and how they were progressing. To my surprise, the picture has changed and there are a couple of new brands leading the list and top ranks.
Lets have a look:

Connecting YouTube with Google+

About 4 weeks ago Google made it possible to connect your YouTube channel with your Google+ Profile. Many companies hope for a better rating in visibility through this measure, however, it can get quite difficult to do so. Why, I am going to describe in detail.

It is a main problem for connecting these two accounts if you have 2 different e-mail addresses and one of them is a Google Mail. Many people use a Gmail address for their Google+ Account, due to the automated process, which creates a Google+ Account for you if registering with Google Mail. On the other hand, at some point a YouTube account was created, of course with an e-mail address for authorization. This address however, cannot be a Google Mail! Why that is, I cannot tell you, but that’s the failure notice you get, if trying:

Current Social Media Jobs in Germany

It is very interesting to see, how Social Media becomes essential in Companies and that more and more experts find their way, also into smaller businesses. Here is a current list of interesting openings in Germany, that might interest you.

1. Social Media Manager with focus on Human Resources
Sixt Car Rental GmbH
Pullach, Germany

2. Senior Social Media Manager
Sixt Car Rental GmbH
Pullach, Germany

3. Social Media Manager
BIGPOINT GmbH
Hamburg, Germany

4. Junior Online Marketing Manager (PR & Social Media)
QUOKA.de
Lampertheim, Germany

Cultural Change through Customer Service & Support via Social Media

Many companies, not only in the tourism sector, go through a cultural change these days, encouraging their employees as well as clients to engage on new media platforms as Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. This period is already ongoing for quite a while, however, it seems a lot of businesses do struggle with sticking to their decisions made and taking the change process to the next level.

The Customer Service and Support via Social Media and new media platforms can be seen as the beginning of a cultural change process which effects entire business operations as well as each and every employee. I would like to sum up these important steps and give reasons, why this process is so protracted and rather difficult, especially within big businesses and groups.

Step 1: Integrating the Customer Support via Social Media and creating workflows

Having introduced Social Media Support to all your platforms and channels the community learns that support is given not just through e-mail, telephone or mail, but also through new media and mostly quite quicker than on all other channels. As daily requests rise, the support process within your company needs to be optimized in security, quality and speed. Requests need to be placed right at the center of knowledge for every single topic. A structured map can help to visualize every step of a workflow to make sure all topics that might occure are covered.

Presentation Dynamic Use of Social Media for Results

Presentation Dynamic Use of Social Media for Results at ENTER 2013 Innsbruck, Austria from Juliane Saß

Social Media Guidelines - A unique Approach

Creating strong, convincing and encouraging Social Media Guidelines sometimes is the hardest. Especially in big companies with many employees and a lot of different departments being involved in corporate social platforms it is difficult to manage and coordinate all activities. Social Media Guidelines help to create a certain level of understanding and support for every employee in a company, by summing up all important factors and guidelines to be followed, if communicating in the social web. Of course, Social Media Guidelines are also of interest to people in a firm, that might have no contact to any online channel at all. A very innovative and encouraging approach of a Social Media Policy has been created by an Australian Department of Justice in 2011:

German Tourism Brands on Facebook

Due to my earlier interest in German Google+ pages and their performance I got searching for the German brand pages on Facebook. I must say it is pretty impressive how successful these pages are and that even new pages build up their audience quite quickly. Lets have a look at the latest ranking.

Ranking German Facebook pages in the tourism sector:

The Best Job in the World - Now 6 Positions vacant!

The best and probably well known touristic marketing campaign of our century is back and this time there are 6 incredible Jobs available, each and every one of them unique and for a duration of 6 months with a unbelievable pay package of a A$100.000! Also new in this marketing campaign is that this time it is not only Queensland, that is employing. Australia is favoring its 6 most visited areas through the spread out of this campaign. You could see the marketing start in 2009 with Queensland as a trial and now it is being rolled out to the entire country. Even better, that the "Jobs" are personalized to a very specific kind of tourist and that almost everyone in the world could identify with one of the 6 Travelers.

So get applying for:

1. Chief Funster (New South Wales)

Hanging around the big cities posting and tweeting about all the big events and festivals - My personal favorite ♥

2.  Lifestyle Photographer (Melbourne)

Find the right angle on all there is to see and create magical city and country shoots - You might need to bring your own Camera for this one ;)

Social Media Explained

Interesting! Now I get it ;)

German Tourism Brands on Google+

Since the launch of Google+ Pages in November 2011 the platform developed further and sometimes I had the feeling, that actually not as much has happened in terms of usage or success. That's why I wanted to have a closer look at the tourism industry and on how all the new G+ Pages in Germany have developed over time. Here is a little list with all the touristic Google+ Pages in Germany with their current Follower and +1 count.

Ranking

1. sonnenklar.TV                         21.994
2. Fluege.de- Ihr Flugexperte       18.716
3. Opodo.de - Ihr Reiseexperte    14.632
4. Hotel? trivago                          14.040
5. Expedia.de                              13.924
6. Hotel.de                                  13.443
7. HRS - Das Hotelportal               7.766
8. lastminute.de                            5.019 
9. HolidayCheck                           2.132