Just got done applying for the position of Director of Social Media at Holland America Line. How cool would it be to work for an awesome cruise company right here in Seattle?
They have over 426 thousand 'Like's on Facebook! What a great community! @HALcruises on Twitter only has 12,430 followers which could (and should) be greatly improved. Over at YouTube, they have a number of great playlists with 174 very well done and professional videos, but less than 1,000 subscribers. Tremendous upside potential here. As Director of Social Media, I would definitely be putting an emphasis on video - YouTube, as well as some of the other social video tools out there like spreecast. How cool would it be to have live spreecasts onboard some of Holland America Line's best cruises? We could be showing off the food, views, entertainment, etc, while people can tune in from all over the world to ask questions about the cruise (and how to book their next cruise).
By far and away the most compelling content that I have seen promoting Holland America Line is not actually produced by Holland America Line at all. It is produced by their customers, clients and fans! Holland America Line has an ultra cool Fan Video Channel on YouTube. There are only 9 videos submitted by fans, but they have over an hour of very real and compelling video produced by their unpaid and self-proclaimed ambassadors! How awesome is that? As the Holland America Director of Social Media I would put an emphasis on acquiring and promoting many, many more of these videos - and work to get the number of viewers that they deserve. By the way, if you are interested in what the food is like on a Holland America Line cruise, check out this user submitted video of the food on a Panama cruise:
Their application process is well done and is obviously designed to screen the thousands of applications they get from around the world. After attaching a resume, filling out more required details, writing a cover letter, and then pasting a resume, there was a short series of 'essay' questions. Not really essay, but questions to be answered with a fill in the blank box. I really got into answering the first question: Why I am interested in the position at Holland America.
Then I started thinking, I'm wondering if someone is monitoring their reputation or at least using google alerts to find out what people are saying online about Holland America .... I'd pretty much guarantee it - because I'm sure that they realize how important reputation, especially online social reputation is to a service business like cruise lines ... It would be a cool thing for you to comment on this post if you found this post due to your involvement with Holland America. I hope I've given you at least a couple of ideas of what could be done. Thanks!
BTW - If you are interested, my resume can be found at: JoeConnector.com/resume/
As Don Burrows predicted, I was immediately shut down and am not under consideration for this position.
ReplyDeleteI sure do hope that the person they hires really puts an emphasis on video - especially videos from customers.