There are many reasons why people would be inclined to turn to Twitter for boosting marketing effectiveness. It’s free marketing for one, the residual SEO effects are worth the time, the direct traffic is great and the resulting increase in general brand awareness make Twitter a great time investment. So what can you specifically do with Twitter to help in all of these areas? Marketing with a Twitter Contest is one terrific approach.
First of all try to think of a product or service to offer that has good perceived value to the public yet is something you could produce at only your cost or time. If you can’t think of something like that you can always purchase something to give away. Just look at it like a small price to pay for more followers, visibility and all of the other benefits that come along with running a Twitter contest.
Once you’ve decided on what the prize will be the next thing you should do is decide upon the type of contest you will use. One possible way would be to create a unique #hashtag that will be a part of your tweet that you will have people re-tweet to enter. For instance: “Retweet this to win free Snoop Dog Tickets on Jan 10th via @connectiveweb #connectiveSnoop”. You can then document the contestants by tracking your hashtag through a Twitter search or various widely available Social Media Marketing tracking services.
Make sure, obviously, to follow through. Get your list of participants into a spreadsheet then use a random number generator to select the winner. Once the winner has been selected be sure to Tweet about it on the date that you set. Happy Twitter Contests!