04.12.08
Zappos gets a big win with Twitter - Go to Vegas!
Posted in Best Practices, Social Media, Social Tools at 12:57 pm by Mosey
Yesterday around noon I got a tweet from @MichelleBB that @Zappos was holding a content. At the end of the day @Zappos (Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh) was going to pick one person following him to win a free pair of shoes. A couple hours later he also said he’d give a free pair of shoes to upto 10 followers of that winner who are also following.
A pair of shoes for Zappos is no big deal for sure. So this was a goodwill investment for Tony. As soon as I got the announcement (and followed!) I saw that his following count was a little over 200.
Three hours later as the word filtered through the internet his followed counted over 400. By the time he gave the shoes away to @rotkapchen there were over 1000 followers.
This morning the followers were back down to 966 but Tony will show those early leavers. He just a couple minutes ago announced:
I want to meet more customers. On Monday, I will select a random @zappos follower for free trip for 2 to Vegas for office tour & lunch w/ me
I really think this this twitter strategy is brilliant. Sure the plane tickets are a cost but he could have done this shoes give away could have been once a week and he would have thousands of people following.
What that really means is thousands of technophiles, glued to their computers most of the day listening to any “commercial” he has about a new feature, or a sale or anything. His cost a few hundred dollars a week.
Don’t think this is the last person to do this. It has been getting a lot of buzz on the blog circuit. As well, the winner blogged about her Zappos win as well as the friends winners.
If you have a e-commerce site and can afford a hundred bucks a week you too can harness some Twitter power and get a, fairly-rabid following in this form of simple, easy contests. Free baseball cards, I am there. Travel voucher, there. Magazine subscription, there. Free books, there… you get the idea. I am willing to read a couple of “commercial” twitters a week from someone for the random win once a year. Costs me nothing.
Costs the “advertiser” almost nothing and gets new customers, branding and messaging in front of people who would have ignored you and all the extra benefits of the buzz. Ignore @zappos has already one-upped the stakes with a trip to Vegas, this will become the next big thing on Twitter. Someone grab twitterdeals.com
Plus, hey, I could use a trip to Vegas, I have a ten year anniversary coming up with my wife.
Technorati Tags: twitter, social marketing, SMO
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Warren Whitlock said,
April 12, 2008 at 2:38 pm
@zappos did it right, and you did a excellent job of reporting it.
I used twitter to give away 10 copies of a book a few weeks ago. I knew that the though leader on twitter would be the best ones to spread our author’s meme.
However, just participating in talking about these stories has positive effect.
1. I got new followers and closer relationships with my promo and the @zappos. on the later, I got a dozen @ replies and got one step closer to a deal with one of them
2. Looking for coverage, I found this blog, and followed you on Twitter. I hopt the will lead to a new relationship
3. I have an twinterview promised from @zappos about their use of Twitter for “The Twitter Handbook” I’m writing
4. I hope to hear from you and do a twnterview for the book
And all reading this comment, the tweets on twitter, and hearing about it will benefit when they connect with like minded people.
Twitter rocks.
Warren Whitlock
http://Twtitter.com/warrenwhitlock
Mike Mathews said,
April 26, 2008 at 11:19 am
….and Twitter strikes again. I was directed to your blog from a tweet about your thoughts on the void for organized social media capabilities within agencies, but I ended up reading a number of different postings and this one made me want to comment.
Another aspect of this @zappos story is modestly hidden because everyone wears shoes, but other companies with more niche market appeal will benefit from this same strategy because interested parties self-select, so the likelihood of spamming people drops very low. This is a much better build-broad-messaging strategy than what the spammers put in place and the success ratio will probably bear that out once it is measured.
I am adding you as someone to follow on twitter and into my GReader. I look forward to other interesting thoughts.
@memathews
Mosey said,
April 26, 2008 at 11:27 am
@memathews
I have been telling this story whenever someone mentions social media. I do love that anyone with a niche market, or a new product can employ this for hte cost of one product. Obviously you wouldn’t do it for say, bulldozers, but you certainly could for gel filled bike seats or a new brand of soda.
First one to tell @jonessoda gets a free sixer