Seems like everyone is talking about Twitter these days. Many of the major consumer brands advertise their Twitter address in their ads and many are running contests. While at the mall the other day, I noticed an ad in Macy's for a Valentine's Day promotion they're running in Twitter.
I thought it might be helpful to Twitter newbie's to dissect Macy's Twitter promotion and perhaps it will give you a few thoughts on how to copycat the idea for your business.
Macy's SweetestTweets Rules
"Tweet your original Valentine's Day verse from February 1 - 14, 2010. Be sure to tweet using hashtag #sweetesttweets. Each day we'll select a winner to receive a diamond pendant necklace. On February 14, we'll award the grand prize, a 3-stone diamond ring, to one lucky winner!"
While they don't specify it on their promo page, the Official Rules state that the potential winner must follow @macysinc in order to qualify. The goal here is to increase the number of followers. They will notify the winners via Twitter's Direct Messaging. (In order to DM someone, you have to be following each other.) You can only tweet your SweetestTweet once a day, among other rules.
Macy's Promotional Web Page Layout
Along with the rules and some colorful pink, white and red images, Macy's placed a "follow us on Twitter" image on the promotional page. To engage visitors, they placed a Twitter widget on the page which shows all the Tweets containing hashtag #sweetesttweets.
A hashtag is a way to create groupings of a particular topic. All you have to do is place a # sign in front of the word or phrase (no spaces) within your tweet.
Promotional Goals
There are most likely many reasons why Macy's has created this contest, but since I don't work with them, I'll have to make some educated guesses:
- Increase the number of Twitter followers
- Increase the number of Twitter lists they're on
- Increase their sales - online and offline
- A secondary goal may also be to increase their number of Facebook fans
As of this writing on 2/1/10 at 10:00pm EST, Macy's has:
- 7430 followers,
- they're following 165 people, and
- they're on 436 Twitter lists.
I think it's safe to say they probably increased their visitors by a couple of hundred people since this morning when the contest started.
Here I am making an educated guess again, but I would have to think that Macy's has web tracking mechanism's in place to determine how many online sales and the value of those sales came from this Twitter promotion.
Google Analytics offers free web site tracking code that can help with tracking online sales. I also recommend http://bit.ly/ for tracking clicks on web site links. Google Analytics provides valuable insight to your advertising efforts. I've loaded it on all of my clients' web sites and couldn't function without it.
I'll track the Macy's Twitter campaign through 2/14/10 and report back on the number of followers they gained during the promotion and see what lessons can be learned from it.
Have you run a successful Twitter campaign? If so, what was the goal(s) and how well did it work?
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