Twitter Contest Wrap Up

Why do a Twitter contest?

Why do a Twitter contest? Well before I answer that question, let’s back up for a minute. Since I started using Twitter, I’ve determined that it’s a tremendous tool. In fact, I’ve even went as far as to say that I believe Twitter is the biggest communication tool since e-mail. I’ve often used Twitter in order to connect and network with other people and companies, seeing if one of my followers knows another person at a particular company or something to that affect. More often than not, I find out the information I’m looking for - if not immediately.

Since using Twitter and becoming more interested in other people’s experiences with it, I’ve spoke with some of my good friends including Neil Patel, Chris Winfield, and even some people we met at blogworld from Southwest Airlines to see how they ”value” Twitter followers. Essentially, everyone gave me the same sort of response - each Twitter follower is worth about two dollars (that is what companies are evaluating each follower).

Honestly, I think that sort of valuation is actually somewhat low. When it comes to Twitter, I often see a much better click-through-ratio for my followers than I do from my RSS subscribers (about 8 times better to be exact!). Since I’ve always valued RSS subscribers at about one dollar per subscriber, you can understand why I believe Twitter followers are worth more. (I know it sounds crappy to put a dollar value on a human, but in the end you need to put some sort of value on these things. If you don’t, you can never truly measure your effectiveness or ROI.)

After talking to my friends and nailing down an estimated value for each Twitter follower, I brainstormed a list of prizes (reasonably priced) that I thought people would be interested in. I then chatted with my friend Kris Jones (the owner of Pepperjam Affiliate Network) about sponsoring these prizes for something I called my “Twitter contest.” He thought it was a great idea and said they were down. Once I got the thumbs up from him and had the prizes locked down, I was ready to have my contest. The ultimate goal would be for me to gain more Twitter followers while also providing a new follower with the chance to win a pretty cool prize. (Sounds fun and it costs me basically nothing.)