Gwangyang City Wins Grand Prize at the '2021 Korea SNS Awards'

Achieving 5 Consecutive Years of Awards in the SNS Field

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Heo Seonsik] The SNS of Gwangyang City, Jeollanam-do, is receiving praise as an entertaining and friendly local government SNS for its citizens.

The city operates six official SNS channels centered on its official YouTube channel ‘Oroti Gwangyang,’ including KakaoTalk, Instagram, and blogs, and is recognized for communication with citizens through fun and fresh content that breaks the mold of typical institutional SNS.

In particular, it was honored again this year with the Grand Prize for Basic Local Government City category at the ‘2021 Korea SNS Awards,’ following last year’s recognition.

This is a remarkable achievement of winning awards in the SNS-related field for five consecutive years since 2017, establishing Gwangyang City as the nation’s top local government in the SNS sector.

Starting with the blog ‘Sunlight-filled Warm Gwangyang’ in 2010, the city launched the Gwangyang YouTube channel ‘Oroti Gwangyang’ in April 2020 and operates differentiated social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, KakaoStory, and KakaoTalk, providing diverse and high-quality information to citizens.

The city produces and provides easy-to-understand card news on policies and daily life information that citizens are curious about, and communicates not only with citizens but also tourists through emotional photos and video content showcasing various parts of Gwangyang.

In particular, the official YouTube channel ‘Oroti Gwangyang’ currently has about 9,700 subscribers, ranking second among Jeollanam-do local governments, following Jeonnam’s ‘Jeonnam Eutteum Tube.’

‘Oroti Gwangyang’ features vlogs showing the daily lives of public officials without embellishment, hopeful messages for overcoming COVID-19 such as ‘Waiting for the Obvious Things,’ and promotional content for Gwangyang’s specialty product, maesil (plum), with public officials appearing directly, offering more familiar and sincere content that resonates with the public.

Gwangyang City is actively uploading promotional videos focused on city administration on its official YouTube channel in line with the non-face-to-face trend in the COVID-19 era.

Also, ‘Maedoli,’ a character personifying Gwangyang’s maesil, is loved by people of all ages for its uniquely cute and lovable appearance, and Maedoli goods produced as SNS souvenirs are also very popular.

Since its release in June 2019, 26,000 Maedoli emoticons sold out in just three hours, and in February 2020, 51,923 emoticons sold out in 27 minutes, demonstrating Maedoli’s popularity.

Oh Seungtaek, head of the Public Relations and Communication Office, said, “As the importance of non-face-to-face promotion grows due to COVID-19, the importance of SNS and content has also increased,” adding, “Going forward, Gwangyang City SNS will focus on communication with citizens by discovering friendly content that forms empathy with citizens.”

Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Heo Seonsik hss79@asiae.co.kr