Using a Twitter Contest to Raise Brand Awareness

The folks over at Wizards of the Coast, the makers of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, have teamed up with the folks over at UGO.com to host a contest using the Twitter social media tool.

The contest involves consumers watching a website for a specific change in the web copy. When they see the change, they try to be the first to tweet the new copy. The first Twitter user to post wins.

This is a great way to use the tool as it forces a core group of consumers/users to monitor a company web property and then, when they see the copy change, they broadcast that copy (which is a sales message from the company) to everyone that follows them. Brilliant.

This isn't the kind of thing that will work on the B2B side, but I'm very pleased to see companies finding ways to leverage the social networks of their customers to reach out to a wider customer base. That's the way to use these tools. You have to get beyond your current client base and spread the word. It's great if you can get your customers to do it for you. Sometimes you have to offer a reward, but it's worth it.