To coincide with US President Barack Obama’s state visit to Ireland on May 23rd, an initiative that attempts to get Ireland trending on Twitter that day is well under way. The initiative, started by PocketNative, hopes that a high volume of tweets containing the hashtag ‘#IRLday’ will ensure that the topic trends on Twitter during the President’s visit and Ireland receives the attention of over 200 million other Twitter users.
People are also invited to tweet images of Ireland throughout #IRLday, like this sunset scene in County Fermanagh. Credit Darren McCarra
The initiative’s main aims are in the promotion of Ireland as a tourist destination. It calls on all Irish and non-Irish Twitter users alike to tweet positive stories and comments they have about Ireland, and to include the #IRLday hashtag in each tweet. It’s hoped that communities will help promote their own individual areas and Irish tourism and hospitality providers will tweet what’s special about their businesses and the services they provide. All this will help illustrate how “resilient, vibrant, enthusiastic and fun Ireland can be”, while genuinely promoting Ireland as a very real tourist destination to the wider world.
To get involved all you have to do is tweet as many positive and interesting things about Ireland on May 23rd as you can think of. You can also help promote the initiative to other Twitter and Facebook users by adding a shamrock twibbon to your profile picture.
