Publicity Plan for the Rural Common Platform and Social Media

Rural Common is the first platform in Hong Kong to present information about Hong Kong's countryside to the public. The project team has been using the following methods for public outreach:

(1) Google indexing: Indexing the website allows the Village Story page to appear in Google search results.

(2) Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Composing and incorporating material along with search phrases to achieve better rankings in relevant search results.

(3) Social Media Linking: Providing links to articles on social media posts of the same article.

(4) Social Media Adverts: Promoting the articles on social media platforms.

(5) Social Media Page "Linktree": Including the Rural Common website and promoting articles via the Instagram and Facebook "Linktree" features.

Through these methods, the total reach of Rural Common's social media platforms in the first phase exceeded the original target, with a total of 177,695 views and 9,200 page views. To cause users to visit the website and read the full text, the team regularly shared condensed versions of the collected stories with innovative illustrations during the second phase. For instance, Facebook posts prioritised text and illustrations to draw villagers and readers who prefer in-depth content to the website, resonate with them, and encourage comments or re-tweets. Meanwhile, Instagram focused on images, summaries and activities, targeting young, visually-oriented readers in order to build brand image, draw readers to visit the website, foster community cohesion, and publicise village activities.