Twitter campaign to promote Ireland

TOURISM:A MARKETING campaign for Irish tourism which combines Twitter with heritage tourism has been launched in Britain.

“My Irish 140” aims to encourage those living in the UK with Irish heritage to tweet their connection with Ireland.

The campaign is being led by Tourism Ireland. It will work around the number 140 – the maximum number of characters in a tweet.

It started yesterday at 1.40pm and will continue over 140 hours (or 5.8 days). Followers will be encouraged to tweet their connection to Ireland using the hash tag #makesmeirish. They can also include pictures and links.

A specially created webpage myirish140.com will highlight best tweets and include a list of the top 140 things to see and do in Ireland, which will be released gradually over the course of the 140-hour campaign.

Tourism Ireland was encouraged by the success of The Irish Timesonline conversation #greatthingsaboutireland that was launched recently to counteract the avalanche of bad news about Ireland which has been circulating recently.

There are an estimated six million people of Irish extraction living in Britain and the marketing campaign is part of a wider strategy to exploit the renewed interest in ancestral roots as a result of programmes like Who Do You Think You Are?

Tourism Ireland is also hopeful that the release online of the 1901 and 1911 censuses will encourage more heritage tourism to Ireland while Fáilte Ireland is working on a homecoming campaign based on the successful one run by Scotland last year.

Tourism Ireland chief executive Niall Gibbons said they had been working to maximise the use of social media platforms, most notably Twitter and Facebook, to promote the island of Ireland.

“Twitter is a great way for us to promote Ireland and engage directly with potential British holidaymakers in 140 characters,” he said.

“We can keep in touch with people around GB, track what they are thinking, inform them about news and events in Ireland in a fun way, inspiring them to come and explore the island of Ireland.”