According to the psfk blog, the idea was imagined by an agency in Stockholm and approved by the government. The goal is to increase tourism in Sweden by enriching Sweden’s ‘personality’ through different perspectives.

As a creative director of the agency in Stockholm said, “What we’ve done instead is said; all people living in Sweden are in essence ‘Sweden’ so they’re a good representation. So together the total of us give a multifaceted view of what Sweden is all about and very personal – high and low, funny and stupid, intelligent, stupid, funny, quirky.”

This initiative is brilliant for several reasons.

1. The initiative epitomizes the ethos of social media. Tweeting by everyday people will make the @Sweden account more social, personal and interactive.
2. The initiative is a grassroots approach. The government is willing to let any ordinary citizen have a say about “their” Sweden.
3. The initiative will make tweets more personal – and therefore add a personal feel to learning about Sweden. Having everyday people tweet whatever they want to about ‘their Sweden’ is more likely to bring a more personal and “real” feel to the tweets.
4. The initiative may produce more entertaining tweets and more attention. People search the web for information and entertainment. How many entertaining videos went viral last year? Remember the one about the dog owner torturing his dog with amazing food he wasn’t sharing?

It is a bold and risky move to hand over branding to your population, or is it? I no longer think it is risky because a move such as this harnesses the power and appeal of social media and acknowledges that some elements of branding are a direct result of customers, clients and anyone who interacts with you.

What do you think about Sweden’s experiment? Would you be willing to hand over your Twitter account? Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

If you are interested in the Globe and Mail article, you can read it here.

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Like my image? It’s a stock photo courtesy of .

Last week, I was challenged by someone on Twitter, to update my blog, with the promise that he/she would drop by to visit once the blog was updated.  I waffled back and forth between excitement that someone had taken the time to look at my Twitter profile and website and mild annoyance that someone was coaxing/recommending that I update my blog.  As a classic rebel, I don’t always do well with good advice.

So I got to thinking about Twitter and that one small interaction.  It was my first person to person interaction.  I was happy that I was not just speaking into the Twitter cloud along with all the other Tweets. I was talking to someone and someone was talking to me… it wasn’t a lot of white noise conversation.  And it has made me rethink how I will use Twitter….  Here is what I have learned.

• DM’s (direct messages) are better than putting stuff out there – you might get real interaction.
• I was using Twitter to learn from others – now I will not only gather info but will thank people for their tweets when I use their information or find it beneficial.  How can you build a relationship with someone if you don’t thank them for what they have given (didn’t my mother teach me that?)
• Ask people to let you know (using DM’s) when your information is useful.
• Be one-on-one with people – at first I put out tweets that were like standing on a soapbox. Now I plan to engage.

So I am grateful for that interaction last week. I will no longer use Twitter as a platform to gather information, but as a platform to engage with people.  I know, I know  -  it was intended to be used that way in the first place.  But for some reason I wasn’t using it that way.

So thanks, Twitter friend, for that small interaction.  It moved me away from being an onlooker to the place of wanting to engage. 

Where are you at on the Twitter spectrum?  Are you an onlooker – an outlier? Engaged? Information gatherer?  I would love to know where you stand… and while you are at it, tell me what you have learned.