A Small Mountain Village Gets Big on Facebook

CHUR, Switzerland, September 30, 2011 -

Now Anybody Can “Become” Swiss

The little mountain village of Obermutten in Graubünden has been on Facebook for a few days and is making an unusual promise. Anyone who goes to www.facebook.com/obermutten and clicks on “like” can put his/her photo onto the Commune’s official notice board. By doing this, anybody anywhere in the world can “become Swiss”. After only three days, the village already has fifteen times more fans than residents, and this number is growing by the day.

The identity pictures are printed out by a councillor and pinned up on the noticeboard and the fans thus become part of the village community. The eighty inhabitants - many still without an internet connection - like to get to know their fans in this way. The village has been simply swamped with fan applications. However, the Commune in the Graubünden holiday region has undertaken to keep its promise. Now that the noticeboard is already practically full, new fans are being posted on the wall of a huge barn and the village council is looking for further alternatives.

“Obermutten is developing a personal relationship with its guests. Here it’s not a question of the total volume, but of each individual one. Why shouldn’t this be the same for us in the internet?” asks Martin Wyss, Mutten’s village president. Already many people from all over the world who would like to “become Swiss” are posted on the noticeboard or barn wall.

The village president communicates with his fans in short video messages in an extremely personal way and every day the fans can also find themselves in a picture of the noticeboard.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/obermutten

Here are the video messages on YouTube:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjRltCdbEMM

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEjoA_695Fo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbam_abZ5sI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyi958k8NLw

Contact:
Graubuenden Tourism
Gieri Spescha
Head of Corporate Communication
+41-81-254-24-31
gieri.spescha@graubuenden.ch

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