Four years ago, vanessa wischer moved from the tranquil town of nordheim am main to study in vienna. She is currently holding down an exciting job in the austrian capital. Since july, she has been working in the social media team of the NEOS (new austria) party. "It just felt right to stay in vienna for a while, especially because i’m still young and free now," she says. Her dream is still to become the french wine queen. After her election as representative of the french wine country was cancelled last year because of corona, she can now concentrate fully on her new job in the social media sector in vienna.
It’s not the first time the 22-year-old has come into contact with politics. As wine princess in nordheim, she spoke with many local politicians and was also able to meet markus soder. During her work at the breakfast television "cafe puls" she dealt a lot with the european elections and prepared some broadcasts with the top candidates.
The appeal of politics
Prominent politicians are nothing new for vanessa. According to her, she is very interested in politics and has always chosen political topics for her practical projects at the university. "For example, we once created a multimedia report on women in politics, which meant analyzing data and interviewing various female politicians," she recalls. She is now all the more pleased to be able to actively support politicians: "it appeals to me to work for politics and thus to be able to help shape politics to a certain extent."
In concrete terms, the former wine princess is responsible for communication on all social media channels of the NEOS, and there are many, since the party wants to appeal to many young people. NEOS describes itself as liberal and open-minded and wants to stand for a politics of the new generation. Each channel has different target groups and thus its own content, explains the "channel manager" from franconia. "We even use tiktok because it allows us to reach young people. In austria, you can vote at the age of 16," reminds wischer. Short infovideos are posted there, politicians are introduced – just like on instagram. On linkedin are played almost only economic topics. On her youtube channel, wischer also publishes longer videos, for example a series on the topic of education. It’s less about information and more about discussion and entertainment, she explains. The communications team receives content input from the content team, consisting of speakers and their various areas of expertise.
Wischer works with two colleagues on the social media team. Her main task is to coordinate communication on all channels and stream the livestreams for all channels. "This is particularly exciting. I am present at plenary sessions or was now also at the election campaign kick-off in linz. I like to be in the middle of the action," says wischer, "even if you sometimes have to lug your camera equipment halay across vienna to get there.
Creative professional life
But livestreams are by no means everything. At events such as plenary speeches, meanwhile, stories are uploaded to all channels and then short videos are made with the politicians with the most important information so that they can then be uploaded to instagram, facebook and tiktok. She likes her work because she can be creative. "That’s the beauty of the media industry: to work creatively, to try out new things and also to redesign, because the industry is so fast-moving and dynamic," says wischer happily. One is always at the pulse of time.
Her journalistic experience from her time at "cafe puls" and her internship at "radio 886" can also be put to good use in social media. One of the main challenges is to break down long press releases or speeches to the most important points, and to do so in a comprehensible way without distortions.
Parallels to journalism
In this sense, there are many parallels to journalism. In addition, she says, it is always important to represent the diversity in the party and to bring in the personal component of the politicians. "That’s the rough advantage in social media: politicians become approachable and often come across as more authentic as a result," says the channel manager.
Besides journalistic editing, video editing and livestreams, she coordinates, communicates and plans wiper. She works very closely with the press team, the online marketing team and the delegates to ensure that press releases, information and plenary sessions are presented in the best possible way. The daily morning meeting also serves to network everyone. This keeps the lines of communication short and makes it possible to communicate quickly.
Community management is also a very important area of social media. Another team is working to correct or respond to comments on the web and to stimulate political discussion and debate on political issues.
Currently the 22-year-old feels comfortable in the social media team and in vienna. As in her homeland, she likes to hike there and has even discovered vineyards a bit off the beaten path.