Altmark – Fantastic sunsets on the Arendsee, wide landscape panoramas or half-timbered details in old Hanseatic cities. Under #Altmarkliebe There are countless pictures on Instagram, which on the one hand testify to the local ties of the Altmarker, and on the other hand can certainly inspire one or the other tourist for the region. However, an essential player is currently still missing on the social media portal. The Altmark Regional Marketing and Tourism Association (ART for short) has not yet been represented there. A mistake in the strategy?
Stephanie Walter, responsible for regional management at ART, emphasized in the Volksstimme conversation that other social media activities were “planned” in addition to Facebook. The young tourism association (founded in 2019) first went to the website www.altmark.de concentrated. There is also a newsletter and a Facebook site, which currently has almost 4,000 subscribers. Compared to the much older Facebook page Wendland.Elbe, which advertises the northern neighboring district of Lüchow-Dannenberg, not a bad value. The Wendländer follow a little more than 8,000 Facebook users.
This is how the Wendland does it:
A marketing agency from Cologne (North Rhine-Westphalia) has been taking on the online part of tourist advertising for the neighboring Wendland for several years. Like ART at www.altmark.de, the Lüchow-Dannenberg district presents itself under the domain www.wendland.elbe.de as a multifaceted holiday region with a modern website. But the Wendlanders with Cologne know-how have been relying more and more on social media since the beginning of 2016. And there no longer “only” on the industry giant Facebook, but also on the up-and-coming “successor” Instagram.
The interest in the region has “increased enormously” in recent years, reports Ann-Christin Hammer for the Wendland.Elbe marketing office. “And social media will have contributed to that,” she explains when asked by the Volksstimme. Overall, she sees a mixture of the well-stocked homepage, the Facebook activities and the increasing popularity via Instagram. Hammer also sees a slow change, away from Facebook and towards Instagram and other social media.
Cooperation with influencers?
“At first we didn’t want to use too many channels – we didn’t want to get bogged down,” says Stephanie Walter, explaining why the Altmark Tourist Association is not yet represented on Instagram, for example. Such a new channel must also be affordable in terms of personnel. Nevertheless, one has the topic in view. Looking ahead, she also names the Pinterest platform, which “could become an issue” in the future.
ART is also open to so-called influencers from the region. “Instagram is very image-heavy, with very good material,” says Stephanie Walter from the commitment of many Altmarkers there. There have already been contacts with some photographers. But of course there could be more: “We are very open. We look forward to hearing from you, ”she says. Photographers can use the email addresses [email protected] and [email protected] for this purpose.
Foto: Tom Przibilla
A little further there are the Wendlanders: In order to upgrade their Instagram presence and generate greater reach, the Cologne agency often works with larger partners for the Wendland channel. Ann-Christin Hammer names the Hamburg metropolitan region or Marketing Lower Saxony. In addition, there is cooperation with influencers, for example Naturlandkindwhose Instagram channel is currently attracting more than 106,000 followers. Hammer also emphasizes the importance of local brands, i.e. strong brands and companies from the region. The organic fruit juice manufacturer Völkel from Höhbeck is known nationwide. Joint competition campaigns bind followers to the company, but also to the holiday region.
Try yourself out on social media
“It’s always a matter of trying things out,” advises Ann-Christin Hammer to experiment with social media. It seems to be paying off for Wendland.Elbe. The number of subscribers is increasing continuously. The account currently has a little more than 2000 followers.
The fact that trying things out can also work in the Altmark has been shown for several months now by the Hanseatic city of Gardelegen’s Instagram account, which is not purely geared towards tourism advertising. Almost 1200 followers are already there to find out about new developments in the city, current information from the town hall, but also about tourist offers, as this post makes clear.
In addition to Gardelegen, Stendal also has one Instagram appearance. Among other things, the Saxony-Anhalt Day 2022 is advertised there. And also the smaller one Apenburg-Winterfeld municipality is active in the social network. However, there are no other major tourist attractions such as the imperial city of Tangermünde and the old Hanseatic city of Salzwedel on Instagram.
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