A Twitter campaign promoting Prince George launched by Maclean's Magazine is drawing attention online.
Maclean's social media editor David Newland created the hashtag #positivelypg to give Prince George residents a chance to boast about some of the good things about the city after the magazine once again named Prince George the most dangerous city in Canada.
"As I'm sure your readers are aware, Prince George was named the most dangerous city in Canada," Newland said.
"There was a good amount of back and forth about it [online]. Prince George citizens have a lot of pride in their town."
Twitter is a social media site that allows people to post short comments online which are searchable.
The site also tracks trends in subjects people are tweeting about.
Newland said discussion about the ranking had almost died off on Maclean's Twitter account, when a Prince George resident posted a link to a local media story about the city's murder-free year in 2011.
"I retweeted that. But simply saying you had zero murders is damning with faint praise," Newland said. "This is an opportunity for people to chime in. I'm hearing lots of neat things."
Since Wednesday over 60 people have posted tweets using the #positivelypg hashtag to talk about their favourite Prince George experiences or trivia.
Initiatives Prince George acting CEO Heather Oland said the Twitter campaign is a great venue to get a positive message out about the city.
"It's absolutely fabulous that people have taken it on themselves to take part in this campaign.
"We can't depend on other people to tell our story," Oland said. "It needs to happen in a variety of mediums."
Tourism Prince George CEO Aidan Kelly said the Twitter campaign illustrates the importance of social media. The campaign started by Maclean's is a great opportunity to provide some counterpoint to the negative national stories about Prince George.
"There is definitely an opportunity to build on positive things such as this," Kelly said. "Little things like this can get people talking."
Kelly said Tourism Prince George is working with other organizations in town on a strategy to build more positive word of mouth about the city.
"We encounter negative perceptions, but that is mostly from people who haven't been here," he said. "We get positive remarks from people who have been here."
Mayor Shari Green said she had intended to write a letter to the editor to Maclean's about the crime rankings and the positive things happening in Prince George but, "they beat me too it."
"They see the positive side of what we're doing here," Green said.
"I think the city and Tourism Prince George and Initiatives Prince George will strategize to take advantage of the opportunity Maclean's has given us."
Last year the Prince George Chamber of Commerce launched a similar campaign, using the hashtag #Iheartpg.
Chamber acting operations manager Sam Batarseh said the Twitter hashtag was invented to give Prince George residents a place to voice positive things about their city.
"Iheartpg was a gift to the city," Batarseh said. "Lots of people have pushed lots of things on it."
Both Twitter campaigns can be found online at Twitter.com.
