QUEANBEYAN is full of wonders from the tranquility of a river side walk to cheap thrills like free parking and plastic bags and while residents know all about them local businesswoman Hilary Wardhaugh wants to get the word out.
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Ms Wardhaugh is proposing locals get behind the 'Visit Queanbeyan' hashtag on social media in an effort to promote the town and provide an authentic picture of what it is actually like to live here.
Most Canberrans would probably believe Queanbeyan is all about two dollar shops, takeaways and burnt out cars and while there is a bit of that, there's also the chance to spot platypus, capture landmarks like the Suspension Bridge and of course public artworks like Morty the Snail. That's the Queanbeyan Ms Wardhaugh wants to share with the world.
"A lot of regional towns are using these hashtags. It's a simple effective way - you're getting real time testimonials by real people and that's where the strengths lie," she said.
"En masse sharing on social media is really powerful. People believe what they see out there. If we could just propagate a positive image to the general community then I think that's better for Queanbeyan.
"It's a powerful thing to get a whole bunch of people who are happy to tag their photos #VisitQueanbeyan - and I think it should be photos, it shouldn't just be words and text because images say so much more."
Ms Wardhaugh was inspired to start using #VisitQueanbeyan after being a 'human brochure' for a Visit Canberra initiative in 2014. She was one of the 101 picked for the initiative from a pool of more than 1000 applicants.
"We tagged everything #VisitCanberra and #humanbrochure on Twitter, Facebook, blogging or Instagram. It was picked up by some sort of spiders on Google and populated on to human brochure website," she said.
"At the end of campaign we were told it was very successful in creating some forms of tourism to Canberra so I still tag 'Visit Canberra'. I thought to myself 'What am I doing? I should be tagging 'Visit Queanbeyan'."
Ms Wardhaugh said #VisitQueanbeyan has gained the approval of the folks over at Visit Canberra and she hopes locals will get behind it. It's as easy as adding #VisitQueanbeyan to any social media posts including Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
She knows of about a dozen local social media users who have committed to get the #VisitQueanbeyan ball rolling but hoped more local would support it.
"Let's get it trending!"