'I Love Aceh' Marks Two Years on Information Sharing

BY NURDIN HASAN

SCREEN SHOT PHOTO

Banda Aceh, TAG – A popular twitter account in Indonesia’s Aceh province Thursday commemorated its two years in greeting and providing information of the region’s situation and condition through its micro-blogging site with a series of online and offline social activities.

Aulia Fitri, the originator of @iloveaceh community account in a press release obtained by The Aceh Globe mentioned that the main event to be held on Sunday at Sultan Selim II Aceh Community Center, a post-tsunami building built by Turkish Red Cross.

On the event, @iloveaceh tweeter would meet its contributors and followers. The account has some 11,771 followers and 7,392 following as of Thursday afternoon. It has posted 54,600 tweets about the situation and condition of Aceh since it created.

“This year event’s theme is “Aceh lon sayang, rakan meubahgia” (I Love Aceh, the friends will be happy),” Aulia said.

He added the community also held a social activity of blood donor program which cooperated with Indonesian Red Cross. Besides that, they also organize a seminar of technology and social media along with an event that trying to know better of @iloveaceh community, watching an Acehnese heroine of Cut Nyak Dhien movie and giving conferment of #2thonIloveaceh (two year of I Love Aceh).

The first idea created the @iloveaceh account on twitter came from Aulia. But, later it managed by some student activists in Aceh and Jakarta to campaign of Aceh’s situation and condition through microblogging and blog.

“We will try to improve @iloveaceh not just sharing Aceh situation, but also to develop this twitter account as a discussion medium among its followers and followings. There are several hashtag on the account such as #suarawarga (the citizens’ voice), #infocuaca (the weather information), #infowarga (citizens’ information) and #infoevent (event information).

The account also shares the news of situation of the province that located on the northern tip of Sumatra island from local online and newspaper websites. “All those tweets to ease #Atwitlovers (Aceh Twit Lovers) in finding agendas that occurred in Aceh,” Aulia said.

“Through the help of contributors and the followers, we hope a lot of useful information given, not just to share news, but also mobilizing social activities, helping people in need and promote Aceh. That’s our concern in developing the account, " he said.[]