Make Genoa a part of you

For this reason our Municipality is pursuing different measures, in close collaboration with citizens and communities, in the use of social networks. In particular Instagram, in recent years, has become an important instrument for digital communication and tourism promotion, probably the social network with the hugest potential: instagrammers with a single photo can spread all over the world the beauty of a place, a city, a nation.
As Municipality of Genoa, when in March 2014 we presented the new logo created with the URBACT Project – City Logo, we immediately launched the hashtag #genovamorethanthis. In this 3 years 140.000 photos has been tagged with #genovamorethanthis, a significant number and a national and international showcase for the city. But our Municipality wouldn’t be able to do all this work alone: since the beginning we are working in straight collaboration with the community of local Igers – @IgersGenova composed by a group of people in love with the city, which daily and enthusiastically use Instagram as an opportunity to share photos of Genoa with all their followers.

During the last months we’ve launched different campaigns, with the aim to find out new Social Ambassadors for the city, but for the Autumn 2017 we have added something more: we’ve build a campaign totally based on the importance on the job that our local instagrammers are carrying out. They already are Ambassadors of Genoa because with their passion they help the Municipality everyday in the creation of a new storytelling of the city, and through their eyes we are able to see different faces of Genoa and how beautiful it is.

For this reason, we’ve chosen them as Ambassadors: three members of IgersGenova - @_lorsen_ , @mikina76 , @piero2376 allowed us to use their faces on 150 posters, spread around in all the city. We shot them and we put one of their photo, representative of 3 parts of Genoa, on their t-shirt, with the slogan “Make Genoa a part of You”.

Genoa is effectively a part of them, but it is also a part of all the people which every day contribute to promote it in Italy and abroad. Paola Bordilli - Deputy Mayor for Tourism and Commerce, Elisa Serafini – Deputy Mayor for Culture, City Marketing and Youth Policies, the founders of the community IgersGenova Andrea Sassarego and Luca Balletti and all the social media staff of the Municipality: all these people offered their face for the social campaign.

In order to involve in the action the citizens too, on the first days of October we will launch a Photo contest, in collaboration with Il Secolo XIX, the most important Genoese newspaper, which becomes official Media Partner of Interactive Cities with this action: the Genoese will be invited to share the pics of their favorite corners of the city; the best pictures will become the stopovers of a digital, Instagram oriented map of Genoa. Besides that, we will try to reach the tourists too, using a bookmark, printed in 100.000 copies, to be provided through the Tourist Information Offices, the Hotels and with the cooperation of the official tour guides, whose associations are members of the ULG and directly involved in the planning of this action. A videoclip dedicated to the campaign will be broadcasted on the screens of the Genoa International Airport and of Palazzo Ducale, the main cultural hub of the city (both members of the ULG); and specific social media contents to promote the campaign will be created and used by all the partners in town.
We think that this kind of action will give good results in terms both of community involvement and of Social media contents production, because Genoa is surely part of its citizens, and it can become part of all the tourists who will “snap and share” the beauty of the city on social networks.

Communication Officier

Municipality of Genoa