Russia is big in social media. According to Natalya Koroleva from Редкая марка (a marketing agency in Moscow):

Russia ranks first in the world in social networks involvement

Huh? 1st? Don’t know if that can be true. But after Natalya’s presentation I’m convinced that the russian Internet or Runet is worth a closer look. It’s a parallel universe with its own Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube clones (Vkontakte.ru, Moikrug.ru and Rutube.ru, respectively). The localized versions are typically much more attractive for the 50M russian Internet users than their western counterparts. приятно познокомиться!

In general, the rules for marketing and PR sounded the same than what we’ve learned in the States and Canada: Be personal and interesting, and that achieving results require long term planning. Nothing new.

Natalya showed us some interesting travel PR cases. My favorites were the Insipired by Iceland campaign because the video soundtrack is by Emiliana Torrini, and the Keep Exploring campaign by Canadian Tourism Commission. The Keep Exploring campaign launched interactive “Twitter Walls” displaying tweets about Canada travel. Looks interesting.