Genova25: promoting the city on Instagram
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11 June 2018In 1992, in order to celebrate 500th anniversary of the discovery of America by the genoese Cristoforo Colombo, the ancient port area of Genoa has been redesigned by the famous architect Renzo Piano (another genoese), and the Aquarium was opened. It was the beginning of a new life for Genoa on the tourism scene. 25 years later, Genoa is definitely a renowned touristic destination, in Italy and Europe. We decided to celebrate the 25th anniversary of this fundamental moment with an action totally “social media- based”.
Starting from an analysis of the topic travel trends, from May 12th to May 14th 10 Municipality of Genova and Aquarium of Genova - supported by Porto Antico Spa and the local community Igers Genova - organized #Genova25, a three days Instatour in the city, to increase engagement, digital PR and storytelling.
The aims of the Instatour were to share contents about the city on Instagram and to strengthen the relationship among stakeholders: so this action perfectly suits Interactive Cities!. We moved in two different directions: on one side, we followed a fondamental rule of social media marketing: “involve influencers”. On the other side, we invited the rich and vivid genoese Instagrammers community to join the action.
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10 Instagramers from Italy, France, Germany, Neederland, Spain and Scotland were invited to discover the city for three days and to take pictures on Genoa’s hidden, marvelous districts, corners and squares.
By their sharing, the influencers created an amazing and special storytelling on Instagram - the most important social media of the year, with over than 700 mln of users, and a channel we are focusing a particular attention on.
5 italian Igers (Davide Oricchio @davideor94, Agnese Iannone @Killbilla, Martina Palma @marttipal, Christian Bramante @chryphoto, Marco Usai @gusions) and 5 international Igers (Darren Brogan @poetic_mouse, Jonatan Rius @pinapli, Toni Stadler @tonistadlr, Ngoc Chau @nappyc e Henry Charles Nicolas Semidei @metadio) found out an “unexpected, surprising, photogenic” city.
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Jonatan Rius, from Spain - alias @pinapli, with 107k followers- said “Photographing Genoa means to capture feelings, atmosphere, mood… If I look at my pictures I can still breathe sea, smell nets and I feel nostalgia for the city.”
Toni Stadler, a young german Iger, was surprised about the vertical alleys, the narrows and “the funicular, the elevator…I have never seen a city like Genoa, you have so many different perspectives”.
At the end og the Instatour, on sunday morning, the local community @IgersGenova promoted an event that has involved all the #instagramaddicted citizens: an Instameet in the district of Nervi, a small village about 8 km far from the historical centre but close to the beaches.
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The Instameet was not just an opportunity to meet the famous VIP IGers but also a meeting for the locals to know each other offline. Andrea Sessarego and Luca Balletti, the community managers of IgersGenova, introduced the initiative saying that “Igers and Comune di Genova are creating and managing together many different projects during the year, in order to promote the city online and tell everyone how Genoa is beautiful!”
You can see the results of the Instatour/Instameet on Tagboard, here
Or opening this Facebook album on @GenovaTurismo
Rossana Borroni
Social media strategist, Municipality of Genoa
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