On Aug 16, the information office of the Shandong provincial government launched a "Stories of Shandong, China" image promotion campaign.

The campaign seeks to create a new highland for Shandong's opening to the outside world to help with major projects of old and new kinetic energy transformation and its high-quality development, to tell the story of Shandong and spread its voice, to make extensive use of various media, to mobilize resources and strengths of all parties, and to promote Shandong's investment environment and tourism development at home and abroad.

Shandong, one of the founts of Chinese culture, has a long history and a rich culture, and is the birthplace of generations of men of renown. It enjoys manifest location-specific advantages and a GDP among the top three in the country. The campaign seeks to collect and disseminate, by new media, stories of Shandong's outstanding traditional culture and scenery and its innovation and entrepreneurship, reform and opening-up, as well as generate win-win cooperation.  

Three categories of content - text, pictures and videos - are targeted for collection. After review and public exposure, authors of short-listed works will be awarded a certain amount of money in line with the content’s quality and degree of circulation at home and abroad. The award-winning works of the "Stories of Shandong, China" Exhibition will be posted online after the event for secondary and diversified circulation. 

This event marks the first time that the information office of the Shandong provincial government has used social media to initiate interaction on a global scale or gathered a large volume of submissions and disseminated those of high-quality to the world.

The event is hosted by Sina.com, Weibo and Sina Shandong. Media agencies including Shandong Broadcasting Media Group, Shandong Pictorial, China Shandong Net, Shandong Haidai Traditional Culture Research and Development Center, and the Shandong Xinhua News Center. China Daily and Thomson Reuters have offered support by providing a variety of promotional platforms and channels.

(Scan the code for the official website of the event)

A poster for the "Stories of Shandong, China" image promotion campaign. [Photo/sd.sina.com.cn] 

The iconic Baotu Spring of Jinan, capital of East China's Shandong province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]