Srinagar, May 4 (PTI) The Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Department today claimed that its Facebook page has been ranked second among all state tourism boards in the country by the social media giant.

Facebook did the ranking based on total interactions including reactions, shares and comments on the page from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017.

Owing to its aggressive tourism promotion campaign on social media, the Facebook page of the JK tourism has been ranked second among all state tourism boards in India in 2017, the department said in a statement.

The Kerala Tourism Facebook page having 1.5 million likes has been ranked first and Gujarat Tourism Facebook page having 1.2 million likes third in the ranking.

The JK Tourism Department launched its official page in January last year and despite being just a year old, it has taken lead over the pages of tourism board of Gujarat, which has Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan as its brand ambassador.

In a year, the JK tourism Facebook page crossed two lakh followers making it fastest growing pages in India, the statement said.

“We recently released data of the top-ranked Facebook pages of government bodies, ministries and political parties in India. The data looks at the popularity of these accounts in the period of January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017 and is based on interactions on the platform, which include total reactions, shares and comments. You will be glad to know that JK Tourism's Facebook page is at second position in its category,” the official quoted Facebook Public Policy Manager, India, South and Central Asia, Nitin Saluja's email letter to the JK Tourism Department.

Director Tourism Kashmir Mahmood Shah received the award earlier this week from Saluja at Facebook's New Delhi office.

Shah thanked the people of the state and the country for supporting the tourism in the state by making its Facebook page most interactive and engaging.

“We started our Facebook page only last year when other tourism boards had crossed millions of likes. It is a big achievement for us and the whole credit goes to the people of the country, especially of our state, who supported and liked our page and made it the most engaging,” the director said.

Since its launch, the department has been posting pictures, videos, and drone visuals, short films on a daily basis to promote the potential of the tourism.

In one of its biggest ever tourism promotional campaigns, the department released a five-minute short film 'Warmest Place on Earth' which was posted on the Facebook page on September 23, 2017, garnering millions of accumulated views in just one day.

The movie has crossed over 20 million accumulated views so far projecting Kashmiri people as most hospitable and lovable.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)