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Twitter contests can be a great way of getting you or your brand noticed in the Twittersphere. Yes, they can be annoying when everyone is spamming retweets left and right, but who doesn’t love having the chance of winning a Macbook Pro or an LCD TV for 2 seconds of work? Explosive Twitter contest campaigns like the one launched by site builder Moonfruit (@moontweet) rocked the twitter world (the UK company used twitter to give out 10 macbooks over the course of 10 days). In fact, there was even evidence that Twitter censored the #moonfruit hashtag used for the contest because it was getting too popular for its own good! Till this day (months after the contest has been over), people are still adding #moonfruit into their tweets.  Trying to emulate Moonfruit’s success, many other twitter users have launched similar contests. Let’s look at one of them right now: Business phone service provider OnSIP (@onsip) launched their own twitter contest a few hours ago, pledging to give out 2 Netbooks to those who retweeted about the contest. How many more followers have they gotten? I count 5. Not 5000. Not 500. Not 50. Just 5. Wait, are you telling me that only 5 people in the twitter world want a free netbook? That’s pretty hard to swallow… Well if that’s not the case, then what could they have done differently? Here are some suggestions and observations for their twitter campaign and any future twitter contests you may plan on holding. 1) Twitter contests rely on momentum. If you tweet something and its retweeted by active followers who also have active followers, then great–you’re already halfway there. If that’s not the case, then your contest can die extremely quickly, and you’re left in an awkward position wondering what went wrong. If you currently, don’t have a very active twitter follower base, then try to see if you can host your contest on the site of a friend who does have one. On twitter, one really popular tweeter makes all the difference. 2) Recognizable prizes. Moonfruit was a phenomenal success. Why? Well partially because they said they were going to give away 10 Macbooks. Pretty much everyone in the Twitterverse without one wants one. One misstep OnSIP might have committed is the decision to go with netbooks. A lot of the population may still be unfamiliar with the term. If you don’t have the funds to offer such lavish prizes, then I would suggest giving away something else you know your followers will value. For example, discounts or special offers for followers. A lot of contests also pledge to give out a bigger prize once a certain follower count has been reached. For example, @onsip pledges to give away another Netbook if they reach 1000 followers. 3) KISS. No–don’t offer kisses. KISS stands for Keep It Simple Stupid. Don’t make people jump through hoops to enter your contest. Moonfruit’s contest essentially consisted of asking people to follow their twitter, and add “#moonfruit” to their tweets. That’s it. Asking people to tweet you their social security number, mother’s date of birth, and favorite color is a no-no. So there you have it. 3 basic rules to follow. I’m not promising you you’ll get 100000 followers if you do just those things, but at least it will get you started in the right direction. And good luck to @onsip . Right now if you enter their twitter contest , you have around a 40% chance of winning a Netbook. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . Do’s and Don’ts of Twitter Contests — The Moonfruits and the non

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Do’s and Don’ts of Twitter Contests — The Moonfruits and the non

Yesterday, Twitter started to officially roll out its own retweet function that has been the cause of some serious consternation from the Twittersphere (or whatever silly term you want to apply to the Twitter community). Before we go into any detail please note the following and make sure you filter your reactions through the most important piece of data that you will need to know about this whole thing: you don’t have to use the new function. You can do whatever you want with regard to keeping your version of the status quo or adopting Twitter’s new retweet function. Also, this is not the final product as Evan Williams points out in his explanation of this overly controversial move by Twitter . Overly controversial? Yup. While this can be viewed as a fundamental shift in how Twitter is used it’s not like some heavy-handed edict has been passed down to the users of Twitter in a “it is what it is” manner. No, it’s just another option. If you feel the need to complain even knowing this piece of information then you are likely to be the lottery winner that would say “Gee, if only I had won it last week I would have had more”. In other words, you probably complain about everything. Back to the story. TechCrunch sums up the changes as follows If you do happen to have it now, here’s a few interesting notes about the new feature (at least on twitter.com): First, there is a new Retweets area in the right side bar. This allows you to see “Retweets by others”, “Retweets by you”, and “Your tweets, retweeted”. While the UI for the main homepage retweets can be a bit confusing at times, this Retweet area is laid out pretty nicely, as it is easy to see who exactly retweeted what. Second, as co-founder Evan Williams noted today, there is an easy way to turn off retweets from individual users. Simply click on their profile and make sure the Retweet logo (the circular arrows) below their name is not highlighted green. This means that it’s off and you will not see Retweets from that user in your timeline. That’s great for users who go overboard with the feature and muck up your stream. Third, if you do hate the new Retweet way, just don’t use it. Nothing is stopping you from still using the “RT …” syntax. The new Retweets simply give you an easy way to highlight something to your followers with the click of a button. I HIGHLY recommend you visit the Ev Williams blog post for his complete explanation of the who, what, where and why of this change. Otherwise, this truly is what it is. Twitter has simply recognized that their third party developer and user system has created something of value. They are now trying to corral it in the best way they know how and leaving it open for debate and use. It’s actually that simple.

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Retweets Will Never Be the Same …. Unless You Want Them To Be