More than 20 influencers and journalists have been used to try and promote the county’s greenways since 2023.
The influencers were engaged through marketing consultants Turley Planning Ireland, who have won two contracts to market the greenways since 2022, worth over €80,000.
Independent councillor Jackie Healy-Rae told the recent council meeting he was not overly impressed with the social media engagement on posts promoting the greenways.
Cllr Healy-Rae questioned the council on how many occasions content creators or influencers were used to promote the county’s greenways, how much they were paid, and the impact they had on promoting the greenway projects in Kerry.
The council replied that it engaged with over 20 influencers and media journalists through Turley to promote the greenways.
Turley Planning Ireland won a contract worth over €45,000 to market the greenways in 2022 and 2023, and another worth €36,000 to market them for 2024 and 2025.
The council said Turley takes charge of managing, sourcing and renumerating media contacts, content creators, and influencers for press launch events, promotional campaigns, and content creation initiatives.
The reply further said the council meets with Turley once a month to oversee its work.
Kerry County Council said there is a direct link between promotion efforts and an increase in traffic to the greenways’ website, whose visitor numbers increased by 29% in a year.
Cllr Healy-Rae said he was not overly impressed with the engagement, meaning likes or comments or shares, on social media posts promoting the greenways.
He questioned how much of an increase 29% was, given no figure was provided for what it increased from, and if Turley has autonomy on which influencers it picks.
Kerry County Council’s Director of Economic and Community Development, Niamh O’Sullivan, said the council is not party to Turley’s own internal relationships with individual influencers.
Ms O’Sullivan said these influencers also share posts on their own social media, and one such post featuring the Kingdom of Kerry Greenways was viewed over 31,000 times on Instagram and 28,000 times on Facebook.
