The Video is up!

January 13th was an eventful day, the first day I learned of “The Best Job in the World”. However, February 6th was an even better day. Friday morning I logged into my gmail account…and…the email was there waiting for me, “YOUR APPLICATION HAS BEEN APPROVED!”. Wooo hooo! Watching my blood, sweat and tears live on Islandreefjob.com was the best feeling. My VIDEO is up and being watched by Tourism Queensland and the WORLD, I am officialy in the running. Now, the greatest struggle ahead of me is going to be getting Tourism Queensland to choose me for one of the 50 spots on their short list.

Once the initial joy of knowing that my video was now live, I began working on building the buzz for my video. Of course there were a slew of txts and calls made, and then it was time to start reaching out to the world. It’s great that my video is on the site, however, unless all of the people I know and the people they know watch the video, it’s all a matter of chance. I mention in my video that I pioneered the use of Facebook in my current position as an Admission Counselor. I am going to use the knowledge I gained through that process to help me move on, to the short list of 50 and hopefully, be chosen as one of the 11 to actually interview in-person.

Friday I launched my Facebook initiative. I have created a group “Zeni is Aussie Island Bound”; sticking with the AIB (Aussie Island Bound) brand that I’ve created with this blog. I have also created a fan page “Zeni the Future Island Caretaker”; outside of the AIB brand because of the different uses of groups and fan pages within Facebook. Through the group, I have been able to invite all of my friends and inform them of my bid for “The Best Job in the World”. The fan page is a passive tool for me to reach all of those people who may not have a Facebook account, like my parents.

The group and fan page are launched, now what? For two specific reasons; this is a contest, Facebook is a public forum, I will be a little cagey and withholding on each initiative I launch. What I can talk about right now though, is the reasoning for doing more than just the video and why I am using Facebook. First off, the video application I submitted is great but, it is only 60 seconds long. I want Tourism Queensland to have as full a view of me as possible. When they watch my video and see this blog at the end, I hope that they come and check it out. Then, by reading all of these thoroughly exciting blogs, they will get the rest of the story, started by the video. Hopefully, by reading this blog and learning more about me, they will be compelled to bring me to the second round, the 50 person short list. My second effort I want to highlight here, is my use of Facebook.

We’ve all heard of the six degrees of separation, and this is exactly why I have chosen to tap into the world of Facebook. I only have around 200 some friends on Facebook, though, each of my friends has somewhere around the same number of friends. If each of my friends join my group and connect with my video and then in turn, get at least half of their friends to join and connect and then they get their friends, you get the idea. The benefit here is that I am tapping into a personal connection. More than just a random video among thousands, I now have created a personal connection to that one random video. When one of my friends watches my video and one of their friends watches the video, they are watching someone they know with whom they have a connection. I know that I always like things more when it has a personal connection. So what will I do with all of these group members and fans? That’s what you’ll have to wait for and read about next time.