How a Tiny Swiss Village Became a Facebook Sensation

Fun social media story for the day: how did a tiny Swiss village become a Facebook sensation with nearly 10,000 fans?

Obermutten, an adorable village in the Graubunden region of Switzerland, launched a Facebook page to promote tourism to the area. The page featured a video in which the village mayor promised that anyone who “liked” Obermutten’s page on Facebook would get their profile picture posted on the village bulletin board, reports The Realtime Report.

Apparently getting your pic up in town is quite the motivating factor, as over 11,000 fans have “liked” the page, and some of the town’s population of 79 are now busy posting the growing numbers of profile pics — having overrun the bulletin — on barn walls and other surfaces all around town.

Within four weeks, Obermutten had “likes” from 32 countries and every continent in the world. Based on the video below, 4 out of 5 fans interact with Obermutten’s Facebook page, giving it better engagement than the pages of celebrities like Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. In addition, traffic has gone up on the Graubunden tourism website by a whopping 250%.

In addition to keeping up with profile pic posting, Obermutten is finding new ways to engage its rapidly growing fan base, posting videos and even creating a contest for one lucky fan to win a scarf knitted by the mayor’s daughter.

The campaign is run by Jung von Matt/Limmat as part of “A campaign dedicated to the little and lovely mountain villages in the Canton of Graubünden, Switzerland.”