A Hashtag Campaign: A Critical Tool to Transmedia Storytelling Within a Digital Strategy and Its Legal Informatics Issues. A Case Study

Abstract

This paper dwells upon transmedia storytelling as a cutting-edge tourist-oriented approach to promote a territory in a smart perspective with a focus on the power of a hashtag campaign within a pilot Instagram tour occurred in 2015. Starting from the belief that involvement, participation and sharing are useful key to most industries and sectors, and especially to tourism, we study in-depth Salentoupndown case, as a successful example of 2.0 initiative in terms of creating new models for public engagement, visitor meaning-making (i.e. travel generated content) through the application of the “legal informatics by design and by default” logic, on the assumption that no digital solution today can be conceived without assessing it as by law enacted. Data collection and analysis show how Salentoupndown becomes, in terms of reach, exposure and engagement through the social media channels, a viral tourism web-based event. By integrating the conceptual discussion on the adoption of technology-based innovations in the tourism sector with a 2.0 tourist-oriented empirical experience, the study provides useful insights on the practical implementation of future location-based transmedia storytelling projects.