mayo.ie website a huge worldwide hit with Diaspora

THE Mayo County Council website initiative mayo.ie is a global hub for the 3.3m people across the world with the green and red running through their veins. Set up in 2010, the site had just over 400,000 visitors last year, writes Tom Gillespie.

Martina Hughes, head of communications with Mayo County Council, gave me a breakdown on the success of the project.

She said: 'Back in 2010 our then new county manager, Peter Hynes, wanted to ensure the Mayo Diaspora were very much part of the landscape of Mayo. Over all the years the council had a great, proud tradition in keeping in touch with the Mayo Associations through their St. Patrick’s Day trips. But we wanted to get to a point where there was something more tangible in connecting with our Diaspora.

'We were never asking them for anything. We wanted to connect with them and to see how we could work better together.

'We wanted to do something online that would be an opportunity to check in and see what was happening at home.”

From the off the website has been popular. 'We are not a newspaper. We did not have the resources that the local newspapers have but we work very closely with them, with links and news stories we get from them. The most interesting things that were viewed on it were the very minute details of parish newsletters - who was married, who was christened, things like that.'

Martina added: 'With the website came new contacts, new associations getting in touch with us. We found that our Diaspora do want to connect with us more.

'We realised that mayo.ie served its purpose in connecting with our Diaspora but there was a much bigger story to tell and we wanted some form of an online forum to position Co. Mayo for all the things we wanted it do do. So we ended with this mayo.ie brand and a website.

'This new website was developed with the view of a very clear Mayo message. We wanted to position our county as a location of choice for visits, connecting with, and investing in, so the very clear message is visit, connect, invest. The whole visit, connect, invest is the brand of mayo.ie.'

Martina continued: 'The connect bit is keeping the whole original mayo.ie alive - keep in touch with us.

'The ultimate message I want to get out is what mayo.ie does. It is this website with visit, connect, invest. We have this whole play on the ‘M’ (logo) to try and get people to understand that for us it has grown massively since 2012.

'In the early stages we had a couple of thousand visitors a month and we are now up at over 30,000 visitors a month. In 2016 we had just over 400,000 visitors to the site. There are a gazillion sites for individual products like hotels, etc. The visit section of mayo.ie is probably one of the most important things we have because we have a one-stop-shop for what happens in Mayo and the visit section of the site answers that. The site is ever evolving, the numbers are very pleasing, but yet it is something we can grow much more.'

As well as the website connectivity, it is also happening on social media. Martina explained: 'To that end we have been hugely successful. In our social media following now we have just under 30,000 followers on Facebook and Twitter.

'On mayo.ie we have a small, tight team that gather information from communities, from overseas, and from businesses every day. So what mayo.ie likes to pride itself on is pushing out the positive news of Mayo.'

There are major plans afoot for mayo.ie to become the brand of Mayo County Council and ultimately the brand of the county.

Martina added: 'You will see this ‘M’ in lots of things now. It might be a sporting event or a festival we have supported financially or by sharing our expertise. People like to get the ‘M’ on to their events. It is our hope that in due course the brand on Mayo will take the form of mayo.ie.

'The feedback on the brand has been positive. People can associate with it, they can be part of it because of the way it is made up, of the many parts and many people that make up Mayo.

'We are looking to bring visitors into the county, we are looking for investment, and we are looking to connect with people from this county. We are never about one region. We want them to come into the county and where they go after that is up to the local tourism providers to promote it. Since its launch, mayo.ie has won two national awards for mayo.ie and the work of mayo.ie.'

 

Martina can be contacted at the Enterprise and Investment Unit, Mayo County Council, 2nd Floor, Cedar House, Moneen, Castlebar, on (094) 9047555, or see mayo.ie.