How Tourism Ireland Took Top Social Media Prize
Luck of the Irish?
Hardly.
We’ve worked under contract with Tourism Ireland producing short-form Irish Travel Video PostCards , and the agency was always way ahead of most every other player in the travel industry in embracing social media opportunities.
So, it was no surprise to us when Tourism Ireland was tapped as the winner in the “Best Use of Social Media” contest at the Travolution Awards in London.
It had nothing to do with luck.
They are innovative and experimental, very early adopters of emerging social and new media platforms.
We applauded when BusinessWorld (and others) announced that Tourism Ireland had beaten Virgin Atlantic, Cunard and Radisson Edwardian Hotels to cop the top prize.
Their winning strategy was clever and simple: A Twitter-driven campaign dubbed “My Irish 140” which connected everyone with Irish blood, or who felt connected to Ireland, to Tweet about it.
Wisely, the organization organized everything around the iconic 140 characters that are DNA of Twitter.
• The contest kicked off at 1:40 AM
• Winners using the #makesmeirish hashtag received a 140 hour stay in Ireland
• A web page highlighted the best Tweets and suggested 140 tips or things to do in Ireland.
This exceptional use of social media netted the tourism board a 3.4 million audience in Great Britain with another 33,000 participants, including some well-known celebs like M.C. Hammer.
The success should surprise no one who has been watching travel struggle to adjust to the new marketing realities.
Public Relations researcher, Carol Geraghty reports that since the beginning of 2010 Tourism Ireland has grown its Facebook fan base from 75 fans to more than a half million.
This makes Ireland, Geraghty reports, the third most popular tourist board in the world on Facebook, after Great Britain and perennial favorite, Australia.
Continued on the next page
Follow Technorati